Seller Peldyn was muted for 24 hours for a comment left in this now-closed thread regarding shop closures. Upon receiving the notification email, she sent a return email:
I posted what I did because I could not let your continued ignorance slide. You did not go to business school, yet you profess to know what business standards are, you did not go to law school yet you profess to know how laws are applied in a courtroom during a trial. You only make yourself and Etsy look stupid. Think before pressing the post button and you will make people a lot more happier.
Oh and it was not an attack, but a statement of fact.
[Please note that this email is the seller's property and is reprinted with her permission. The contents are her own opinion and publication here does not imply endorsement or agreement by UEN.]
In response to that email, the admin increased her muting to a month for “personal attacks”. She was also told that if she continued, “further measures” would be taken. Please note UEN cannot reprint the email from admin due to their non-disclosure policy regarding admin communications.
In response, Peldyn sent this email:
So you forum mute me for an additional 29 days for an
e-mail? I could see that if this was in the forum, but this
is not the forum. This is a personal communication between
you and me, you did not even use the convo system. I rarely
post in the forums anyways and the reason I posted in the
first place was because of the misinformation that you were
broadcasting. Do you not see what you are doing? It is so
easy to place the blame on others and not look to yourself.
You are supposed to be in a position of helping people and
moderating but unfortunately you are doing the opposite. You
are alienating those very people you are supposed to be
helping. Community has become meaningless.
In response she was told to take further complaints to Rob Kalin (Rokali) at rob@etsy.com.
The Communications section of Etsy’s Dos and Don’ts does not address conduct via email, only convos and the forum. Muting is addressed in this statement:
If a user continually breaks rules, that user’s ability to post in the forums may be suspended or Etsy account(s) terminated.
Consequences of breaking Etsy’s rules are addressed in this statment:
What are the consequences for breaking Etsy’s rules?
First and foremost, we try to work things out with users personally and privately. If this is not successful, Customer Support will issue an official warning letter. If the warning is not effective in curbing rule-breaking behavior, site abilities may be limited or an account may be terminated.
update by JB, Feb 27, 2008
Peldyn has been unmuted.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:15 am
indeed, and each store in a mall has different policies. Some say “all sales final”, others say you can return for store credit only, others allow refunds even without a receipt. The Mall doesn’t dictate those policies.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:01 am
Oh hell, Etsy overstepped its just-a-venue boundaries when it started monitoring off-Etsy websites looking for people they think are “nasty” and putting them on an internal blacklist. What kind of a “venue” does that?
February 29th, 2008 at 12:49 am
I’ve said this before, but I really feel that Etsy has overstepped it’s boundaries for being a venue. A Mall owner doesn’t get involved with the individual stores when transactions go awry, it is between the shop owner and the customer. Everyone seems to want Etsy to act like a parent to mediate scuffles, when it’s not really their job to get involved. If I go to a shop in a mall and get poor treatment there my recourse is to deal with the store owner.manager and not getting satisfaction there, reporting them to the BBB and perhaps, getting a charge back on my credit card. The mall owner shouldn’t be involved at all. Even if a shop is notoriously bad in customer service or quality of goods, really they are the ones to suffer. If they can’t make their rent next month, then I would say then the mall gets involved,. But as to day to day workings of the particular shops, butt out!
February 29th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Some people are just not suited to positions of power. Daniellexo is one of those people.
As someone who has lead teams and trained my fair share of people over the years, it is pretty easy to see that Dxo does not possess the communication skills for a position such as forum moderator.
Her posts are childish and unprofessional. Plenty are incredibly defensive and knee-jerk. Her reactions appear to be based on revenge and personal taste, not on the actual merits of an incident or, you know, the rules.
Sure, Admin may be human and make mistakes but for crying out loud, hire people who have actual experience and education for their positions.
Rob White and Stella were a perfect forum team. Dxo has a LOT to learn.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:04 am
Perhaps the reason some Admin shops (DXO isn’t the only one) don’t have shop policies is because Etsy seems to feel they can stomp all over your policies anyway. They require that you have them, but they seem to feel free to override them if they wish.
I found this older thread, interesting. (Interesting in that history has this way of repeating itself, doesn’t it.)
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5081030
February 28th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
Her shop policies are just one line- everything is decided case by case.
Kind of like Etsy.
If she feels like sending the item you paid for, she might send it. If she doesn’t like your tone of voice, she might ban you instead. It’s like russian roulette. Do you feel lucky?
February 28th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
I feel that (i) Admin shops and (ii) Featured Sellers should have shops that meet certain standards. They are, after all, role models. All of the details of their shop should be complete and in accordance with the rules. For example, Shop Policies are in the Dos and Don’ts, and therefore are required. Come on, these shops are representative of Etsy - they should be above reproach.
I note that DanielleXO has no shop policies in any of her shops, and for that matter, neither did the seller who was nasty in that thread.
February 28th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
And who had EVER heard of that rule until Danielle posted it a few days ago? I like to think I keep up on most Etsy details but I never saw that rule before, not in the Dos and Don’ts, the FAQs, not even in a previous forum post. It just came out of nowhere.
February 28th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Yeah, JB if you’re in it to make money, you’re a public hater! and if professionals ran Etsy, it’d be sooo 80’s.
In any case, its impossible to enforce that for custom orders. You’d have to sink all of your money into materials just on the off chance someone ordered a puke green crocheted beanie.
February 28th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
“Transfers are the kiss of death…no one wants the final responsibility for being the one to let that person go, usually…”
That’s the way it works in my husband’s company when they dont want to deal with a problem employee.