tPF authenticator discussion

[Jennie's Aunt]

Nailed it! Make it a process, a form to fill out. Those who are serious about wanting answers will comply, the rest will simply not even bother. Problem solved.

I'm with a small cat rescue. We've streamlined our intake process by using forms with mandatory fields. Some rescuers complained that they weren't 'tech savy' at first, but now they love it. The form can't be sent until all the necessary information is filled out. I'm on the admin side and I love it because all the information automatically fills in on the spreadsheet. I don't have to chase the rescuers down any longer asking 'how old is the cat?' or 'What length fur does she have?'

It is a win-win situation!

 

[colourful_belle]

This is true… and one thing that makes those threads vastly different
from other parts of the forum, and makes it so the AT threads
have far different needs..

Like I suggested earlier, perhaps make the Trusted Authenticators secondary
mods of the AT threads….
So they can deal with these issues as they crop up, without having to
find a Regular Moderator who is most likely dealing with
petty conflicts in 5 other sub-forms….

Allowing the Authenticators a lot more control of the AT threads.

I am a moderator of a political site with maybe 100 members….
I can't even imagine what it must be like for the mods here
with 10's of thousands of members…

I think this would be particularly helpful in the AT threads where the moderator is not an authenticator.

 

[anitalilac]

In my jaundiced view, potential buyers have a responsibility to acquaint themselves with a brand before contemplating a purchase. With the vast resource of the Internet at their disposal, a potential buyer should have at the very least a rudimentary knowledge of their prospective purchase.

Then and only then should they seek confirmation. Paid authentication services are a small price to pay when a buyer is considering spending thousands on a bag. However, if they choose instead to avail themselves of the tremendously generous authenticates here on tpf, then it is their responsibility to not only read the rules but to follow them to the letter.

If that's too much effort for a prospective buyer, then I see no reason why anyone should expend their efforts on that buyer's behalf.

So so agree, for a free service, THE PERSON who wants it needs to make an effort to follow the rules. If not, get a paid authentication...

People not posting in the format is a small part of the issue. So problem not solved if only that is addressed.

The nasty behaviour we see cant be fixed with a program or form, and you can only ignore so much. The other forums I belong to have a VERY low threshold for bad behaviour by newbies and there is a lot to be said for that.

Agree

That's the thing. I tried to do that, very recently, without being combative.

A new member posted a request that had crappy photos. I told her that the photos weren't great and to please read page 1 carefully.

She gave me a jackass reply along the lines of "I already posted what the seller had and if you can't help me then FINE".

I said - "that's a pretty rude reply from someone requesting a free service" - which is pretty mild if you ask me - then I reported her post as rude. So then MY posts were removed as well - which DOES give the impression that I too was slapped! AND I got the "inappropriate post, please review guidelines" note.

All for defending myself.

And honestly, if your moderators are sometimes feeling that way - it is really time to start putting the smack down on some of these people.

You have been really calm and polite dealing with them if it was me, I would have reacted in a way that will get myself banned from this forum!

 

[BeenBurned]

Regarding rudeness and entitlement in an AT request, the first rude post should get a warning and if repeated, perhaps a full month total posting suspension would send a strong message that the behavior won't be tolerated.

 

[chanelwish]

Chanelwish, you will be surprised that many people do what they do cos they loved to and it's not always because of monetary gains. That's a myopic view.

i know, i didn't say i think so, i just said that many people think authenticators get paid, thats why so many misunderstandings. i by myself work not for money)so don't think so bad about me))))

 

[chanelwish]

This might be a cultural view…
Different countries, different cultural beliefs.

oh well))) my point was not about money) just about why some people behave so bad after they didn't get answer) and they are from different countries))

 

[zippie]

oh well))) my point was not about money) just about why some people behave so bad after they didn't get answer) and they are from different countries))

Don't agree, I see far more "Americans" being rude in the AT threads.

 

[chanelwish]

That's the thing. I tried to do that, very recently, without being combative.

A new member posted a request that had crappy photos. I told her that the photos weren't great and to please read page 1 carefully.

She gave me a jackass reply along the lines of "I already posted what the seller had and if you can't help me then FINE".

I said - "that's a pretty rude reply from someone requesting a free service" - which is pretty mild if you ask me - then I reported her post as rude. So then MY posts were removed as well - which DOES give the impression that I too was slapped! AND I got the "inappropriate post, please review guidelines" note.

All for defending myself.

And honestly, if your moderators are sometimes feeling that way - it is really time to start putting the smack down on some of these people.

i maybe wrong, but what i think, you should just ignore any post with not enough photos etc...and put it on forum clear- smth like "I answer on your request only if you have ALL photos in good enough quality". Then you will save your time and nerves. And the rest is up to buyer, if they will really need your help they will find good photos. If not, it is they problem how they will understand if its fake or not.

 

[Nikki_]

Regarding rudeness and entitlement in an AT request, the first rude post should get a warning and if repeated, perhaps a full month total posting suspension would send a strong message that the behavior won't be tolerated.

This is a great idea.

I've been a mod on political and health forums in the past and whenever a member was rude, their post would get deleted and they were sent a warning. If the behavior continued, a suspension or ban followed.

 

[LouiseyPeasey]

People not posting in the format is a small part of the issue. So problem not solved if only that is addressed.

The nasty behaviour we see cant be fixed with a program or form, and you can only ignore so much. The other forums I belong to have a VERY low threshold for bad behaviour by newbies and there is a lot to be said for that.

Agree, a form can't fix everything. But IMO most of the nastiness comes from the back and forth of ,,, person posts a link, doesn't get a response, gets a bit peeved, gets told to go read the rules, gets more peeved, authenticator gets heated, and boom. If they can't start on the wrong foot, I think that will mitigate some of the problem.

But yeah, then you get the next part of the transaction that goes south, and you look for ways to prevent that. It's a complex problem, and stricter moderation isn't a scaleable solution, because a) it's exhausting, and b) it can only happen after the transgression.

 

[Megs]

This is a great idea.

I've been a mod on political and health forums in the past and whenever a member was rude, their post would get deleted and they were sent a warning. If the behavior continued, a suspension or ban followed.

That is what we do here too!

We have a system in place and just because the members don't see it, doesn't mean it isn't happening. Infractions/warnings are issued but as I said above we are not operating under a one strike rule for majority of offenses. Sometimes it's clear someone with a single post needs to be banned, but rudeness gets an infraction and then we can track and follow how that poster behaves moving forward.

 

[missbanff]

i maybe wrong, but what i think, you should just ignore any post with not enough photos etc...and put it on forum clear- smth like "I answer on your request only if you have ALL photos in good enough quality". Then you will save your time and nerves. And the rest is up to buyer, if they will really need your help they will find good photos. If not, it is they problem how they will understand if its fake or not.

I know! I've tried ignoring.....but when someone logs on and sees an authenticator on and that their post hasn't been answered....they start BUMPING and BUMPING....

Also - chanelwish, I hope you or someone else in the ATC reports the post where ANOTHER non-authenticator states a vintage bag as "definitely fake and reported" when in fact it may be OK, per another person who does help in the ATC - just as they've asked us to do. Report, report, report - looks like that's all we can do.

 

[maye]

Just curious. How many moderators this forum has in total? Do you guys think that adding moderators will help specially for the AT threads? This is one of the biggest forums on the internet!

Also, I like the following ideas or suggestions posted by previous posters:
(1)Filling a form or something of the sort for AT requests. I think this will help (not solve the problem) with the vicious cycle of not reading the first post and following the rules. If they don't take the trouble to fill the form or follow the rules, then they aren't truly interested in authenticating whatever is what they want to buy. As a result, I think this may minimize the traffic for the AT threads because they will give up or because they are too lazy to fill a form.
(2) A full month total posting suspension for repeated offenders in the AT threads.
(3) Make trusted authenticators moderators of the brands that they authenticate, like CB said: specially for the brands that the mod isn't an authenticator. Only an authenticator can tell if this will work for them or not.

Just my two cents.

 

[devik]

Hey Megs - two questions from me as a new(er) member:

(snip)

Every authenticator is able to authenticate anything they would like at anytime. *HOWEVER* we DO NOT want to allow people to authenticate improperly - to authenticate, one should have a very very deep understanding of a brand. I don't authenticate and I don't at all feel confident to do so. If there are people coming in and giving opinions and you see it's wrong, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE report it and PM me directly - I will handle it. I always handle something like this behind the scenes versus in the thread, that is why maybe you don't see something happening, but I promise if I am told there is an issue, I am on it along with the mod team.

(snip)

Question 1. When you say "report it" do you mean with the Report button at the bottom of a post? Because that feature says something like "only use this for spammers or advertising" - are you saying we should be using it for ANY post that we want to get to the attention of the mods? If so then I think that language should be clarified.

(snip)
On that same note, one of the issues that we run into as admin/mods is seeing members (authenticators included) calling out members in threads - we don't like to allow that anywhere on the forum and never have, so we try to clean that up in the AT threads as well. I think this causes a lot of contention because it may seem like I'm siding with someone other than the authenticators, but that isn't the case. I don't want anyone to mod other than the mods/admins, and I want people to feel comfortable letting me know there's an issue and I promise I will step in to help.
(snip)

Software may fix the format issue; it may not. People may still bump their requests if they want an answer NOW. The flip side of that is this: the reason authenticators respond to difficult members eventually is because it seems no one else will. Moderators/admins' responses to reports has to be faster and it has to be obvious that this kind of bad behaviour is not going to be tolerated. Otherwise, why blame authenticators for finally addressing an ongoing problem in a thread in which they are the most active.

Question 2: I admit that I've been one who - not as an authenticator, just as a regular member - has requested that a new member not issue authentication opinions when they pretty clearly didn't know what they were doing (and I also got slammed immediately back from this person so I can appreciate how much the actual authenticators must have to deal with!). This was on the AT Shoes thread.

I see now that the preferred action is to behind the scenes report the poster - but the problem that I have (besides the fact of presumably a delay - which means that the original requester is likely to go off on their merry way with BAD INFO about their item) is that how will we educate others on the thread? If someone is actually bothering to read the history of posts and they see one person offering opinions based on wrong methods, who gets corrected in-thread, then doesn't that help the whole community and (hopefully) help prevent it from happening again? Or at least reduce the chances. Obviously it does nothing for the gazillions of people who don't bother reading anything. But if the standard response is to just delete posts with bad opinions then it seems like a forever game instead of an opportunity to progress the community.

So the long-winded question is, How do we help new people understand the standards or expectations for who is qualified to be an authenticator (even if it's a self-selecting model) if there is no feedback in-thread when people are clearly NOT qualified?


I get it, that you don't want members policing the place, but sometimes it seems like NO ONE is policing the place... and you know how nature feels about a vacuum. Possibly all this stuff happening invisibly behind the scenes could be perpetuating the problems more than necessary? Dunno, just thinking out loud here.

 

[Nikki_]

That is what we do here too!

We have a system in place and just because the members don't see it, doesn't mean it isn't happening. Infractions/warnings are issued but as I said above we are not operating under a one strike rule for majority of offenses. Sometimes it's clear someone with a single post needs to be banned, but rudeness gets an infraction and then we can track and follow how that poster behaves moving forward.

That's good to know.

Reading over this thread, there seem to be two prominent complaints that I've seen repeated several times.

~Members not following directions and bumping up their AT posts and getting angry with the authenticators
~Newbies authenticating items that don't seem to be vetted for the process

Do the longtime (fully vetted) authenticators in the AT threads have mod authority in these particular threads? If not, perhaps it might not be a bad idea to enable mod status for those threads. They could delete posts on their own (without having to wait for a mod) and send a warning if need be for abusive members. If you're concerned about one mod abusing power, perhaps you could have two mods agree for a deletion.

On various forums that I've moderated on in the past, a special forum (invisible to other members) was set up for moderators where they could post amongst themselves, keeping an eye on certain members, etc. Of course, Admin would have full access and this would likely make it easier on you and other Admins than to sift through the many emails and PM's that I'm sure you receive to see who/what is problematic.

I would tend to think that it would make sense to fully vet members that are authenticating. Personally, I wouldn't trust a newbie that hasn't been here long to authenticate an item for me. While they may be an expert in the brand, no one here knows that. I would hate to see a member purchase an item, find out at a later date that the item was counterfeit and, point fingers at TPF, thus giving the forum a bad name. For this, there really is no easy answer for. (Proving oneself in other threads over a period of time, showing that you know a particular brand with the seasoned authenticators in agreement?)

I have noticed that Colourful_belle for example has one lengthy signature line which shouldn't be necessary. Many don't read, we see this often enough with eBay sales. I see that Tutushopper had to repost the AT rules again yesterday in the AT Chanel forum. I think a great idea would be to have a form prompting the member for the proper fields required to provide authentication.

These are only my thoughts of course, as I'd like to see the entire community happy.