tPF authenticator discussion

[missbanff]

2.. They get angry or rude when denied an authentication because they didn't post in the correct format, or didn't meet the requirements of the thread, not because they didn't trust the reply. Again, this goes back to someone actually taking even the minimal amount of time to find out what is required when making a request. It's also pretty easy to see who on a thread has the most answers - post count is visible to anyone who clicks. Yes, you could dismiss that by saying, oh no one will check, or they don't know how to check. At some point, the person requesting the information has to take some responsibility for their request, whether that is due diligence on the person they want to buy from, researching the item, or researching the authentication itself. I think the bigger issue here is that regular authenticators don't feel supported when they are abused by newcomers.

3. I can assure you that no one is going to take the time to fill out a form - they rarely read the format in the first post even when asked to do so directly. That's the actual title of our thread - asking people to please read the first post.

We don't need more authentication rules. It would just be wonderful if people tried to respect the few guidelines we have.

Yep yep yep on all of these.

I was authenticating on the Prada AT thread, but I won't do it any more.



But the reason I don't authenticate now is to do with plain good manners, and with one particular brand new poster being just a little too entitled, and basically that was the last straw. This person posted their request without any please or thankyou. I replied with the authentication and that "Please and thankyou are nice". Poster comes back with "Please get off your high horse. Thank you". I'm nearly 60 years old and I don't need that sort of shyte.

If that is the attitude of anyone using a FREE EXPERT SERVICE, then they can all go and get stuffed. Unfortunately the one rotten apple has totally spoiled it for everyone who is nice.

While I got incredibly annoyed by people who keep BUMPING themselves and not understanding that photos are really inportant, I quit basically because of one person, who was the final straw. Someone who is not even here a year, with a low post count.

She called out one of the most respected LV authenticators by posting her own pics of a certain bag (taken in a store, no less) and questioning the authentication itself. Well, it turns out the bags were different sizes - in fact, she questioned the bag in not one but several posts. While I don't have a problem with people asking questions, IMO to call someone out publicly is incredibly rude.

Then another person who just jumped in and started authenticating made a wrong call on a vintage bag and when asked to be careful - got very defensive and started asking members to compare their own bags in an attempt to prove him/herself right. Again, all done publicly. Another person who has not been here very long.

And we can't defend ourselves against these people. SMH. Like I said earlier - the fact that these people aren't banned for being rude and/or argumentative to someone who has for many years supported this forum - I just don't get it.

 

[platinum_babie]

1. One person who makes comments does not in fact represent the majority of how "people feel about PF". It's one person's opinion. I also don't think it's accurate to say that because someone doesn't know or understand a community, it automatically means they don't care enough to find out. Some do, some don't. Clearly this person didn't. But ... one person.

2. Having spent a lot of years authenticating, I would disagree that trust is the fundamental reason there are issues in the authentication threads. People don't get angry at me because they don't trust me. They get angry or rude when denied an authentication because they didn't post in the correct format, or didn't meet the requirements of the thread, not because they didn't trust the reply. Again, this goes back to someone actually taking even the minimal amount of time to find out what is required when making a request. It's also pretty easy to see who on a thread has the most answers - post count is visible to anyone who clicks. Yes, you could dismiss that by saying, oh no one will check, or they don't know how to check. At some point, the person requesting the information has to take some responsibility for their request, whether that is due diligence on the person they want to buy from, researching the item, or researching the authentication itself. And I don't get mad at an outsider for not being part of the community - we WANT them to become part of the community. And then ask for authentication (and I know I differ from some others here who feel post count shouldn't matter. To me, it's their way of contributing; mine is authenticating). I think the bigger issue here is that regular authenticators don't feel supported when they are abused by newcomers. You would not believe some of the rude, crude and over the top PMs I have had from people who are furious that they are not getting an item authenticated. Entitled doesn't begin to even cover it. I am in a different position from some of the authenticators in that I am also a moderator and can take different actions than they do if a member is out of line. So on that score, though I am not feeling unsupported, I do get my fair share of abuse. It gets really old.

3. I can assure you that no one is going to take the time to fill out a form - they rarely read the format in the first post even when asked to do so directly. That's the actual title of our thread - asking people to please read the first post.

We don't need more authentication rules. It would just be wonderful if people tried to respect the few guidelines we have.

So yeah, respect. I think bottom line, the key is respect. Every one is new at some point. Some lurk more than post. Some post a ton. Some get even more involved. Everyone was a newbie once. But it's not an excuse for rude or bad behaviour.

For someone who runs a business, one bad customer review is still a customer review. The management can choose to ignore it or not, but to say that it doesn't matter and it's just one person is a fallacy. Megs was the one who pointed out that people can sometimes find the forum daunting, i'm just echoing and substantiating her sentiments and concern with an example. There's no need to get defensive.

It's easy to say that everyone should be respectful. It's also easy to say no one should be racist. But the reality doesn't always pan out the way things should be. The issue here is that no one can control what other people is going to do or say. One can only control what they do themselves.

No one is excusing poor behaviour, but it's going to crop up again and again and hurt the authenticators, so there needs to be a way to minimize it.

If poor format really is a cause of rude behaviour then it could be easily solved with a javascript. From a pure technical standpoint, if the technical format of AT is an online form where people have to fill in fields that are mandatory and not optional, this is no different from asking them to follow a format. It makes the process easier because you see clearly which fields you need to fill in. If people choose not to fill in the fields, they likely wouldnt have read the first post anyway and have followed the format.

 

[mistikat]

For someone who runs a business, one bad customer review is still a customer review. The management can choose to ignore it or not, but to say that it doesn't matter and it's just one person is a fallacy. Megs was the one who pointed out that people can sometimes find the forum daunting, i'm just echoing and substantiating her sentiments and concern with an example. There's no need to get defensive.

It's easy to say that everyone should be respectful. It's also easy to say no one should be racist. But the reality doesn't always pan out the way things should be. The issue here is that no one can control what other people is going to do or say. One can only control what they do themselves.

No one is excusing poor behaviour, but it's going to crop up again and again and hurt the authenticators, so there needs to be a way to minimize it.

If poor format really is a cause of rude behaviour then it could be easily solved with a javascript. From a pure technical standpoint, if the technical format of AT is an online form where people have to fill in fields that are mandatory and not optional, this is no different from asking them to follow a format. It makes the process easier because you see clearly which fields you need to fill in. If people choose not to fill in the fields, they likely wouldnt have read the first post anyway and have followed the format.

Not sure where you are seeing defensiveness. I'm not saying one person's experience doesn't matter. I'm saying you were extrapolating one person's experience as being totally representative of an entire group. No one who runs a business wants bad reviews or disgruntled users/customers. But despite anyone's best efforts, it's going to happen. There are a ton of new members who happily integrate into the forum with no issues. What we are talking about is newbies who are persistently rude or aggressive with long-standing members and seem to be favoured simply because they are new and we want to be welcoming.

The format is not the cause of rude behavior - people not using the format is. People getting angry when being denied because they are not using the format or respecting the guidelines is the issue. THAT is the behavior that needs to be dealt with more promptly.

 

[missbanff]

Not sure where you are seeing defensiveness. I'm not saying one person's experience doesn't matter. I'm saying you were extrapolating one person's experience as being totally representative of an entire group. No one who runs a business wants bad reviews or disgruntled users/customers. But despite anyone's best efforts, it's going to happen. There are a ton of new members who happily integrate into the forum with no issues. What we are talking about is newbies who are persistently rude or aggressive with long-standing members and seem to be favoured simply because they are new and we want to be welcoming.

YESSSSS!!!

The format is not the cause of rude behavior - people not using the format is. People getting angry when being denied because they are not using the format or respecting the guidelines is the issue. THAT is the behavior that needs to be dealt with more promptly.

OMG YES.

I also don't think it helps when many people are on their phones when they view the forum. But as I like to say - the smarter the phones, the dumber the people.

There are plenty of new members who must take the time to read the first page of the ATLV because they DO post in the correct format. And I, along with the other authenticators there, have ALWAYS replied with a "welcome to PF" or something like that. They are sincerely grateful and I am happy if I have helped them, especially if they are new to the brand.

But then there are those who just attach a link with no "please" or "thank you" or" hey, I'm new, hope I'm doing this right". I think it just reflects the general decline of manners in society, but as a place I come to because I enjoy being here and by and large the people are great - I really don't want to deal with it. KWIM?

 

[zippie]

Not sure where you are seeing defensiveness. I'm not saying one person's experience doesn't matter. I'm saying you were extrapolating one person's experience as being totally representative of an entire group. No one who runs a business wants bad reviews or disgruntled users/customers. But despite anyone's best efforts, it's going to happen. There are a ton of new members who happily integrate into the forum with no issues. What we are talking about is newbies who are persistently rude or aggressive with long-standing members and seem to be favoured simply because they are new and we want to be welcoming.

The format is not the cause of rude behavior - people not using the format is. People getting angry when being denied because they are not using the format or respecting the guidelines is the issue. THAT is the behavior that needs to be dealt with more promptly

YES!

 

[restricter]

I'm going to jump into this fray with two points:

1) You don't need to look at the first post in the AT thread to understand there's a format. It's pretty darn obvious by the posts on the last page of each thread where there are posts that follow the format and posts that ask people to follow the format. This goes back to "Nobody reads."

2) We see mind-blowing cases of entitlement in the eBay Pet Peeves thread. It doesn't really surprise me that it's cropping up in other shopping/buying related topics. There are listings on eBay which suggest the buyers visit tPF for free authentication. This may be contributing to the problem even as it brings new members to the forum.

I have no solutions to suggest, just sympathy for the authenticators. Based on some of the posts in this thread, I've browsed AT threads in various formats and it was eye-opening.

Kudos to you all for doing what seems to be an increasingly thankless job.

 

[chanelwish]

Hi everybody. I know I am pretty new for the forum. Even I read tpf for years.. But just started to participate , usually i just shy because of my english.
Well I just wanted to explain some things I see you talking about. I am from another country. In my part of the world people think that authenticators on tPf get paid for authentication from the forum. And thats why they sometimes get angry and take it personally, then they see somebody got answer and they are not. About posting rules.. well, sometimes it takes long time to find right part of the forum, and most of new people have no idea that some rules exist.
I feel so sorry for what happen with chanel part. CB was amazing, she teach me a lot about vintage bags. I hope she will be back.

 

[BeenBurned]

It's cool that you guys notice this. Maybe a year or two ago, someone posted on this other forum I'm on, asking where they can get some Burberry items authenticated. I told the girl she should post in tpf and she said she doesn't want to because:
1. it takes too much work to understand the rules on figuring out when and where she's allowed to post
2. the whole thing is further complicated by the format, etc.
3. people on the purseforum are mean (she said she reads it once in a while but she would never post anything).

The format is not the cause of rude behavior - people not using the format is. People getting angry when being denied because they are not using the format or respecting the guidelines is the issue. THAT is the behavior that needs to be dealt with more promptly.

I'd like to add that it's not just in the authentication threads that people get angry.

I see it a LOT here in the ebay subforum where there's anger, frustration and often rudeness because someone posts here looking for advice and they don't like the advice they're given. Whether it's a poster who refuses to read and follow rules or a poster who hears only what they want to hear and goes on the defensive, there are many occasions of rude behavior.

This is a public forum with (exactly ATM) 86932 members. And with those 87K members come 87,000 personalities, cultures, opinions and approaches to doing things.

platinum_babie, your online friend looked at tPF membership as "mean" and if she interprets enforcement of rules as "mean," so be it. According to your own post, she was too lazy to figure out the rules so we're the bullies?

Or perhaps she reads some of the lengthy threads where members posted dilemmas they were trying to resolve and in the end, they were outed as the scammer who was using TPF to figure out how to make her scam work. Yet we were mean for figuring it out?

Even you yourself felt attacked because many of the responses to your own thread questioning whether an item was SNAD or not didn't agree with you. I think you even made reference to "bullies" in some of your defensive replies.

It goes both ways around here. Some of us are to-the-point factual and blunt and if you're wrong, we tell you we think so. Others are "gentler" and stroke you telling you what you want to hear. (It may not be accurate advice but since it's what you want to hear, you accept it.) Others flip-flop back and forth depending on which way the wind is blowing.

Personally, I'd rather get GOOD advice.

When you come to a venue, whether ebay, tPF, Facebook, Twitter or whatever, you (presumably) have read the TOS that every site publishes. We need to understand that it's their (the site owner/admins') playground and they get to make the rules. You either agree and follow them or you get out of the sandbox and go home.

 

[chicinthecity777]

Hi everybody. I know I am pretty new for the forum. Even I read tpf for years.. But just started to participate , usually i just shy because of my english.
Well I just wanted to explain some things I see you talking about. I am from another country. In my part of the world people think that authenticators on tPf get paid for authentication from the forum. And thats why they sometimes get angry and take it personally, then they see somebody got answer and they are not. About posting rules.. well, sometimes it takes long time to find right part of the forum, and most of new people have no idea that some rules exist.
I feel so sorry for what happen with chanel part. CB was amazing, she teach me a lot about vintage bags. I hope she will be back.

They think the authenticators get paid by TPF? Really? It's really strange. It's a forum, not a authentication service business, nor a charity.

 

[chicinthecity777]

I'd like to add that it's not just in the authentication threads that people get angry.

I see it a LOT here in the ebay subforum where there's anger, frustration and often rudeness because someone posts here looking for advice and they don't like the advice they're given. Whether it's a poster who refuses to read and follow rules or a poster who hears only what they want to hear and goes on the defensive, there are many occasions of rude behavior.

This is a public forum with (exactly ATM) 86932 members. And with those 87K members come 87,000 personalities, cultures, opinions and approaches to doing things.

platinum_babie, your online friend looked at tPF membership as "mean" and if she interprets enforcement of rules as "mean," so be it. According to your own post, she was too lazy to figure out the rules so we're the bullies?

Or perhaps she reads some of the lengthy threads where members posted dilemmas they were trying to resolve and in the end, they were outed as the scammer who was using TPF to figure out how to make her scam work. Yet we were mean for figuring it out?

Even you yourself felt attacked because many of the responses to your own thread questioning whether an item was SNAD or not didn't agree with you. I think you even made reference to "bullies" in some of your defensive replies.

It goes both ways around here. Some of us are to-the-point factual and blunt and if you're wrong, we tell you we think so. Others are "gentler" and stroke you telling you what you want to hear. (It may not be accurate advice but since it's what you want to hear, you accept it.) Others flip-flop back and forth depending on which way the wind is blowing.

Personally, I'd rather get GOOD advice.

When you come to a venue, whether ebay, tPF, Facebook, Twitter or whatever, you (presumably) have read the TOS that every site publishes. We need to understand that it's their (the site owner/admins') playground and they get to make the rules. You either agree and follow them or you get out of the sandbox and go home.

Everything said here!

ETA: The entitlement issue is a worldwide epidemic!

 

[Vlad]

Is that true that tPF members also work as paid authenticators on the side? This seems like a slippery slope for tPF in terms of liability...

This is not true.

edit: I misread the original question. Some authenticators have their own, paid service, but they are not employed or paid by PurseForum for their help on TPF.

 

[Vlad]

If poor format really is a cause of rude behaviour then it could be easily solved with a javascript. From a pure technical standpoint, if the technical format of AT is an online form where people have to fill in fields that are mandatory and not optional, this is no different from asking them to follow a format. It makes the process easier because you see clearly which fields you need to fill in. If people choose not to fill in the fields, they likely wouldnt have read the first post anyway and have followed the format.

This will be addressed in the near future. Our current forum software is really obsolete and we are working toward transitioning to a new platform that is feature-rich, reliable and meant to operate for forum users in this day and age. Hence, it makes no sense to devote resources towards implementing such an AT format on the current platform.

 

[devik]

(snip)


platinum_babie, your online friend looked at tPF membership as "mean" and if she interprets enforcement of rules as "mean," so be it. According to your own post, she was too lazy to figure out the rules so we're the bullies?

(snip)

This is totally not what platinum_babie said in her original post.

 

[BeenBurned]

This is totally not what platinum_babie said in her original post.

In my post, I gave multiple reasons why the membership can be take to be mean, among them, "enlightening" someone who doesn't follow the rules and telling someone something they don't want to hear.

 

[platinum_babie]

This will be addressed in the near future. Our current forum software is really obsolete and we are working toward transitioning to a new platform that is feature-rich, reliable and meant to operate for forum users in this day and age. Hence, it makes no sense to devote resources towards implementing such an AT format on the current platform.

Thanks Vlad - I agree that if you guys are implementing a new platform then there would be no sense in making further technical changes.

I'd like to add that it's not just in the authentication threads that people get angry.

I see it a LOT here in the ebay subforum where there's anger, frustration and often rudeness because someone posts here looking for advice and they don't like the advice they're given. Whether it's a poster who refuses to read and follow rules or a poster who hears only what they want to hear and goes on the defensive, there are many occasions of rude behavior.

This is a public forum with (exactly ATM) 86932 members. And with those 87K members come 87,000 personalities, cultures, opinions and approaches to doing things.

platinum_babie, your online friend looked at tPF membership as "mean" and if she interprets enforcement of rules as "mean," so be it. According to your own post, she was too lazy to figure out the rules so we're the bullies?

Or perhaps she reads some of the lengthy threads where members posted dilemmas they were trying to resolve and in the end, they were outed as the scammer who was using TPF to figure out how to make her scam work. Yet we were mean for figuring it out?

Even you yourself felt attacked because many of the responses to your own thread questioning whether an item was SNAD or not didn't agree with you. I think you even made reference to "bullies" in some of your defensive replies.

It goes both ways around here. Some of us are to-the-point factual and blunt and if you're wrong, we tell you we think so. Others are "gentler" and stroke you telling you what you want to hear. (It may not be accurate advice but since it's what you want to hear, you accept it.) Others flip-flop back and forth depending on which way the wind is blowing.

Personally, I'd rather get GOOD advice.

When you come to a venue, whether ebay, tPF, Facebook, Twitter or whatever, you (presumably) have read the TOS that every site publishes. We need to understand that it's their (the site owner/admins') playground and they get to make the rules. You either agree and follow them or you get out of the sandbox and go home.

Again, she's not my online friend and i never say she was right, and i didn't called anyone bullies because she said this. I even pointed out that i have no idea if she has an account here and got burned here before. All I said was this what happened to me once when tpf was mentioned in a different online forum, and i used it as an example to illustrate what megs was saying about things being daunting for some people.

No one said she shouldn't read or try to make an effort to understand the format. That doesn't change the reality that a lot of people don't. You can't make the people read, so there has to be another way to resolve it and i was providing suggestions.

This is probably the third time now I am posting the exact same response. You'll be happy to hear I'm out. My point was addressed by Vlad. He seemed to understand my suggestion.

This is totally not what platinum_babie said in her original post.

Thanks devik. I was starting to question what i was writing until Vlad and you replied. I'm getting tired of responding and repeating myself - every time i explain something it gets taken out of context like i hate everyone here. To make everyone's world a better place, I'm going to stop posting in this subforum - and head back to the other ones.

I will leave you all with the last word. Wasn't here to argue. Was here to make a suggestion that was addressed.