A busy seller’s Conversation privileges were muted for legitimately contacting buyers with shipping/order info. She was promptly unmuted, but was advised NOT to use convos, but to use e-mail instead. Read about it here.
Here is admin Emily’s reply, from page 12 of the above thread:
emilybidwell says:
I am so, so sorry, but having limits on how many Convos and how fast they go out is the only way to prevent serious spammers from abusing the system. We all wish there was another way, and we know how valuable Convos are to your business, but if you have a newsletter, or a lot of letters to send out at once, please use email so that your Convos don’t get frozen by the spam bot.
BTW: Etsy uses spam filters and bots that will freeze the Convos
Posted at 5:43 pm, January 16 2008 EST
January 16th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
That’s too bad because my emails get blocked as spam sometimes. (I guess I can be glad that immense popularity and innumerable buyers to contact isn’t my problem.)
January 16th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Why have an internal messaging system if sellers shouldn’t use it?
They probably end up spending more time unmuting legitimate sellers than they do responding to actual abuse/spam complaints!
Using the convo feature is a good way to keep Etsy things organized away from everything else that goes in and out of a person’s email account.
January 17th, 2008 at 6:43 am
http://www.etsy.com/dosdonts.php
Her usage of the convos, telling buyers their order has been shipped, appears to be allowed under the Dos and Don’ts.
If the spambot is making too many false mutings, i.e. muting people who are not spamming, then the spambot is the thing which should be adjusted, not legitimate sellers behavior.
Why is it everytime an Etsy feature works incorrectly, the users are told to change rather than fixing the feature?
January 17th, 2008 at 9:36 am
JB - “Why is it everytime an Etsy feature works incorrectly, the users are told to change rather than fixing the feature?”
Because it’s sooooooo haaaaaaarrrrrrddddddd to make any changes to the system! You just don’t understand the complexity involved. They hear your requests, just be patient! They’re not robots, you know. Besides, I can let you know there are at least 50 super top-secret projects in the works which will be super cool!
: P
January 17th, 2008 at 9:41 am
JB, I pointed out that very same D&D section, and made the same argument, on page 11 of luxedeluxe’s thread. Emily’s post, on the next page, did not address the fact that convos were designed for seller/buyer communications - and it makes no sense to tell busy sellers that they must find an alternative to circumvent the shortcomings of Etsy’s programming.
By the way - luxedeluxe was muted after sending five convos. Five. Not five hundred, or fifity, or even fifteen. Just five.
There were several good suggestions made in that thread, which were also not addressed or commented on. Stella did pop into the thread (page 13) to emphasize that convos ARE for conducting business - but her comments did not address the fact that Etsy’s spambot is curtailing and interrupting the flow of that business. Somehow, I don’t get the impression that Etsy is interested in resetting the parameters of the bot, or implementing other solutions to the multiple-convo issue.
I think a comment I made in another thread is just as applicable here:
January 17th, 2008 at 10:16 am
i’ve heard directly from jared that the issue with the spam bot is NOT how many messages you send, but how quickly you send them. His comment was that if you slow down just a bit, you won’t get muted. More than 3 messages in a row really quickly is the problem.
now, this is clearly not a fix. But telling us what actually is going on, does help. I simply make sure i’m not going that quickly when i convo customers.
January 17th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
I think that if they’re not going to adjust the spambot, then they ought to spell out exactly how many convos are required and how quickly you have to send them in order to get convo-muted.
Once again, it comes down to letting people know just what exactly the rules are if you want people to play by them.
January 17th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Although if they tell people the exact formula it works under, then real spammers can avoid triggering it as well as legitimate users, and it will be useless.
I think if someone has a certain number of positive feedbacks they should just be immune from the spambot. Established sellers with good reputations are a low risk for TRUE spamming. It’s new accounts registered just for the purpose of spamming that should be the real target of the bot. If an established seller does spam, the recipients can always report it and that person can be manually muted.
January 18th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Gosh neccies, I almost thought that was my post!
Doesn’t it make you kind of suspicious.. who ever accused them of being robots, anyway? I’ve seen at least 3 separate Etsy staff members deny it. Maybe they ARE robots? I don’t know if that explains anything but it’s one theory.
Good point, JB - why not make this only apply to new accounts, say, less than 25 feedback?