The Armour Archive

A few years ago, I discovered the AA when I was referred here to resolve a dispute with an armorer. Even though AA does provide some feedback opportunity in the form of review threads & complaint posts, perhap there might be something more accessible to the historical hobbiest consumer?

So, to start, how about creating a feedback forum for the vendors selling to medieval wares? This might keep vendors more honest or at least help consumers find the ones that are. At least it would serve to reward the vendors that offer good customer service and satisfaction.

Should I start an independent forum, like the AA for this? I know that BBs can be had for free. Since this is not a current feature of AA I am guessing the idea has been floated before but never been implemented?

If such a forum were worthy of creation, how would the feedback be governed? I mean, how do you prevent the ballot box from being stuffed by an unscrupulous vendor?

Please reply with your ideas and support for such a forum
---or---
your reasons why this is a bad idea or why it should not be done.

Thanks,
Tim

PROS:

• Such a forum would be an ideal "Juried Merchants" site.
  
• People would utilize the forum to steer customers with a proven track record of quality, fit, form, function and customer service.
  
• Properly implemented, such a forum would serve as a feedback list similar to the one on E-Bay.

CONS:

• Such a forum would allow its administrators to be open to libel suits from irate armourers who feel their business reputations have been irrepairably damaged by negative feedback on said forum.

Merits and demerits of such a forum, as I see it.

StudBuckle wrote:If such a forum were worthy of creation, how would the feedback be governed? I mean, how do you prevent the ballot box from being stuffed by an unscrupulous vendor?

IP address logging. Doesn't keep a vendor from running to the library, but there's always a way for someone to "stuff".


Libel suits suck. There would need a disclaimer that says something to the effect that you're not responsible for anyone elses postings. Maybe PoD can help with that end, last I heard he was working for a lawyer?

G--
(personally, I like the idea of a forum as you describe)

I'm a vendor, and I'm all for it. I think it would be fantastic to have a place where people could go and read reviews of how my company handles orders, processes returns, responds to and resolves complaints, etc. I know how we handle things and I think it would be useful for prospective clients to know also.

The only downside I can see (and it has the potential to be a big one) is if disgruntled customers were the only ones to make comment, and none of the happy ones wanted to take the time to post. Realistically, I know my batting average is about 2-3 disgruntled to every 100 orders processed, and if the disgruntleds were the only ones to post it would be a very unrealistic representation of what we're doing here. In business, we understand that people who feel they've gotten poor service are much more likely to complain to anyone who will listen, while the folks who are happy with the service/products they've received are too busy playing with their new toys to bother posting. I don't know how you could address that tendency in an open forum. Perhaps create a place for the vendor to respond or give "their side of the story"?

Gwen
Black Swan Designs
http://www.historicenterprises.com

Edited to correct my poor spelling!

I personally have no problem with such a forum, either. In fact, I would provide a link from my web site to such a site - it would be a good "seal of approval" sort of thing for those who merit good comments.

However, I think this sort of thing has been mostly dodged by BBS operators in the past for fear of liability. I don't know how realistic a problem this really is.

Steve

I have seen things like this on other BB's, but they also had a section for vendor discussion as well.
That feature allows any disagreements between merchant and buyer be handled between each other and yes openly. No dodging phone calls etc. and we also get both sides of the story as it happens, not a one sided blast from an angry customer.
I wish we had this because it would be great for a person to choose a vendor based on actual customer service and not hear-say. It would also help to see what type of person your dealing with when it comes to buying armour or any merchandise. It protects those who spend there hard earned money and is good promotion to the better vendors/merchants who just want to do honest business.
I say it would be a great service to the Archive community.

That's some great feedback so far. Thanks, and please keep it coming. If I don't do this maybe somebody else will be inspired?

I could host this here in Germany. This would circumvent American liability laws and such.

This type of site works great with some hardware search engines and consumer goods portals. I woul need help with the code and such though.

I'd be open to this as well. Of course, is that really required? All the responsible businesses will jump on board, but the problem companies?

Roderick

Hey Sebastian thats a fantastic offer and should solve the liability issue
Count me in

I think this is a great idea and I would be happy to contribute reviews - there's a big difference between getting a custom order filled and buying something that is just an inventory item, so I would recommend that the reviews are categorized by "off-the-shelf" and "custom" as well.

Thanks Adam!

Everybody,

Here are a few more ideas:

1.Even though this will be in Germany, I think we should require voluntary participation by the merchants/craftsmen. This way nobody could scream about his name being slandered.

2.The merchants should encourage their customers to use this system. As to get a higher number of positive feedbacks.

3.An editing function should be available for the editor (me or whomever else does it) so that obvious spamming either good or bad can be neutralized

4. I am still thinking about how to avoid spamming. Maybe something with IP numbers? Or having it set up that when people agree on a deal the merchant activates a "feedback account" for his customer (that he is not able to deactivate). I would like to hear from the people with lots of customers on this. I mean I have 15 customers a mointh, so it isn't that hard, but somebody qith 100 or moire like Gwen would probably fin dthis system way too complicated. Or should it just be open to everybody?

5.We should ask the customers to be precise. No ebay type "AAA++++ Super seller highly recommended!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" feedbacks. If we as merchants want to use this as a feedback tool wen need precise feedback, right?

Maybe categorize the entries:

Date of commision
Date of Delivery
Products(s)
Grade Service
Grade Product
Feedback text

Just some random ideas for now

Sebastian

Fantastic idea having the businesses choose to opt-in. Will they later be able to opt out? This can be good and bad. Bad businesses will likely never opt in. I guess, though, that consumers can still use this as a shopping list of vendors who are proud enough of what they do to volunteer to be listed.

I agree there needs to be some method to prevent spamming the forum, say one person who wants to slander a business who decides to post as 25 different users saying that business X sucks.

Steve

Wow, there have been some exiting developments here. I'm glad to see this idea is some gathering steam. Sebastian's offer is terrific and quite generous.

I hate to see the "Bad Vendors" get ignored. This idea was originally conceived in part to warn potential customers against the bad vendors so that their initial experiences wouldn't be negative ones that affect their potential as future customers for the "Good Vendors". In other words, if a person new to the hobby starts out with a bad experience at the hands of some vendor like Sweet Stitcher, Hammered Wombat, Armour Store, etc. (to name names), that person may be turned off from the hobby and effectively ruined as a future customer to the industry.

Pehaps customers would be required to register an account with name address, etc. before they could post? Maybe the customers would have to use their names, not handles (i.e. Tim F., Susan B., etc.). This would enable vendors a chance to identify the poster and give the poster a little more onus toward honesty than a mysterious alias.

Just some thoughts...

Perhaps the initial post on a topic would be a form to fill out.

Maybe start with a pull down of known vendors, with a final (or first) choice of Add New Vendor.

Then addressing and other details are added, finally followed by the content of the feedback.

This would prevent/slow down spammers and mudslingers, but would give the customer a chance to think about what they are about to say.

I would also have two pools of members, vendors and customers. Vendors would be allowed a number of posts per day(to field a larger pool of customer posts), but customers would be limited to a much smaller number. Again, to avoid spamming a list.

Just some thoughts..
Lothar

Aren't there already online sites set up for feedback on companies? I seem to remember getting a notice that someone had posted a review of my company somewhere. When I clicked the link provided in the notice it went to a page that had my company listed and a speadsheet-type chart with a number of comments listed, but I was never able to access any of the comments. Unfortunately I can't remember what the name of the site was.

Does anyone else know about a website/websites like this and how they operate?

I'm still 100% behind the idea of a free exchange of comments and "Consumer Reports" type reviews. My only concerns are what Roderick voiced, that the problem companies, the ones the public really -needs- to know about, won't be so willing to sign on. My other concern is having the ability to tell my side of the story if a disgruntled client with a lot of free time and computer saavy wants to trash me. I won't say that I never do wrong, I just know from experience that there are always 2 sides to the story, and I want to be able to say something, even if it's only "Yeah, we really messed up on that one, didn't we? ."

Here's another aspect that hasn't been addressed- what about bad clients you want to warn other vendors about? Examples would be clients who order custom items and then cancel post-production but prior to shipment, clients who don't have the money when the item is ready to ship, or chronic check-bouncers. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's experienced these sort of situations, and it would be good to warn other vendors to take care when dealing with these people. What's good for the goose is good for the gander!

Gwen
Black Swan Designs

All good points, Gwen---I would hope the concerns you pointed out would be addressed as well.

• Warn of "problem" companes without needing voluntary participation from them
• Allow vendors to respond to customer complaints
• Warn vendors of problem customers

I too would hope that such a feedback forum would be a useful tool for both vendors and customers alike. If such a forum were too much of a burden on obstensibly "good" merchants such as HE & BSD then the endeavor might be a misguided one?

This certainly warrants enough discussion and debate to turn up every likely boon and boondoggle before any thought of implementation.

Cheers,
Tim

Templar Bob is right.

I just checked with my attorney (I'm filing against Hammered Wombat for a friend) and she says:

"Even if the commentary is physically hosted in Germany, or anywhere on the Internet for that matter, a 'civil libel action' can be filed against anyone in the US by any US-based individual or business for libelous statements that would result in financial loss."

Apparently this has been done to death with eBay (users suing other users, users suing eBay, etc.).

She also mentioned that the burden on the plaintiff would have to prove in court that orders were received, and prove that the orders were cancelled due to the libelous statement, and thus prove financial loss.

Apparently the exact definition of "libel" varies from state to state but the common operand is "proven financial loss".

As I am working to bring MedievalDesign.com to the US I would have loved to see a site like this take off, but I think the risk to the reviewer is high. I think we all recognize that there are a lot of insecure people in this game that can (and will) overreact to a fair review.

That being said, out here on the AA I've posted a lot of positive reviews (BSD, Dragon Forge, Mandrake, Skaldic, etc.) yet notice that I keep the negative ones to myself (as I've been dissatisfied and/or bought crap too).

In any case I agree that it is not fair to crucify any business for a mishap on a single order anyway, even on big ticket items. I just bought a 2005 Crossfire and I loved it so much that I bought Julie a 2005 Pacifica. Hers went in the shop a week after we got it with 47 miles on it. My point is that I didn't run out and sell my DCX stock based on one faulty DVD system.

As they say in, well, everywhere: "Shit happens".

Hope this helps,
Karl

These are all valid points that I will have to digest tomorrow before posting on this again.

One thing though: Karl, the liabilty issue was about the site owner. That any one person is of course responsible for what he/she writes is another matter. If you are going to say bad thgings about a merchant you better be prepared to prove it if you get called on it.

The good thing about law and especially its practice is that (I am sure you have hgeard thius before) cases like the microwave-cat case or the coffee in the lap case would have been tossed as frivoulous or the court order would have been much lower in the first place. I will have to make a serious check on slander laws and such though.

This will take time, but I believe it to be worth it.

Regards

Sebastian

Studbuckle, there has to be a way to do this without repercussions on libel etc.
The site was I was referring to is: www.falfiles.com/forums/
they have a Review section and a Vendor Discussion Forum which yes there are some pretty heated debates sometimes but that normally only happens when a can't get resolved but they do keep it pretty civil. Check it out.

Ok, so I just got another notice from that opinion site that I referred to previously-

-----######YOU HAVE BEEN POSTED ABOUT######

ALERT! - A user is attempting to share experiences and opinions about you via our website.

The purpose of this email is to inform you that a posting has been made about you at our website. This is email is not commercial in nature.

If this email message was delivered to your spam or bulk email folder please notify your ISP or spam filtering company regarding this mistake on their part.

You may view the postings about you here:

http://2.share3.biz/lx.php?a=search&b=5 ... acbell.net

This website also includes a highly valuable Daily Searching System. This is a simple system in which you can set-up searches that this website will perform for you each and every day. After performing the searches that you have specified, our Daily Searching System will send your search results to you via email.

IMPORTANT - If you prefer not to be informed if a user posts about you at our website in the future please add your email address to our Do Not Email List here:

http://6.share1.us/lx.php?a=donotemail& ... acbell.net

Sincerely,

Support Department
------

I clicked around but couldn't find anything but my business name listed 6 times- I wasn't ever able to find or access any comments or requests. Does anyone have any info about this site? Is it a scam, junk mail or legit? If it is legit, how do I see what the comments are?

Thanks!

Gwen

I agree, Gwen. It's looks so "general" I doubt there's anything pertinent there on your business. They are just casting a wide net to engage some sort of participation, I'm guessing.

Perhaps a better idea would be a somewhat jurried merchant list that had a rating system similar to e-bay where customers can post a single line and the seller can reply and together they can choose to remove. It would have to be voluntary for merchants but if you get enough momentum of merchants behind, people will not buy from people not listed and new merchants will register when they set up shop on the internet. Put a liability user agreement for registration, while it likely won't stop all liability but it certainly puts in a level of the judge saying you agreed to this.

The key is building a comunity around the site of merchants and consumers who really use the site.

Brent