posted on December 29, 2000 06:06:43 PM new
I'm in Voices 1 and I can tell you that although there are times when eBay clearly barges right ahead with (what some of us believe to be) bad ideas.... there are often times that we have been able to provide valuable input at a crucial time in the "dreamin' up new ideas" stage or early enough in the development process that DOES have a positive effect on the outcome for the Community.
Sometimes it might just be a simple suggestion, like Disney providing LINKS back to the Main eBay site from the Disney pages to compensate for the links from eBay to the Disney pages.....
Other times, it might be a rant about proposed features that never make it beyond our discussion due to concerns that may have been overlooked by the "dreamers" at eBay.
It's interesting, and completely volunteer. I must admit that as time goes by, it SOMETIMES feels more like working for free with no benefits and no respect from the folks at eBay.... but I will never quit.
Often times, they'll send out a topic to my voices group and several of us will respond with well thought out, deeply studied, time consuming notes.... yet DAYS will pass before there is even an acknowledgment by eBay of receipt of those efforts... sometimes they NEVER "close the loop" with a simple "thank you"... or follow up with - "here's what we've decided to do"...
We get NO Special treatment. NO compensation what-so-ever!! In fact... OH CONTRARE`
Recently, I had a problem bidder that harrassed me, threatened me, left retaliatory feedback in my file and sent extremely gross eMail to me.... I complained on my voices link as well as safeharbor and received NO REPLY from anyone at eBay. No help, NOTHING.....
Believe me when I say that we do NOT receive ANY special treatment, and frankly, I wonder sometimes why I continue to volunteer my time to eBay - it is (for the most part) a THANKLESS task. My buying and selling peers seem to begrudge me for my participation... and the folks at eBay seem to have forgotten (lately) that VOLUNTEER community input from long time registered members is something to appreciate. Still.... I will never quit.
If I knew for sure the answer to WHY I continue.... I'd certainly share it here. Perhaps it's because I fear that without the voices program (ALL of the voices groups - not just one, but the entire voices program) the fine folks at eBay would have our beloved trading site even more FUBAR.
At least they DO consider our comments and there is a measure of sincere contemplation - SOME level of regard for the "community" as a result of our volunteer Voices participation.
I love eBay... I even like most of the folks that I've come in contact with who work at eBay... even though we don't always (or even usually) agree on things.
Frankly, after the recent roll-outs of a few things that I'm not too happy about... I'm just not in the mood to defend ANYTHING on eBays behalf right now. BUT Please don't drag the voices folks down because we can't keep eBay from screwin' the community over EVERY TIME... we do what we can. We are volunteers... we win some and we lose some.... we continue to TRY.
