Archive for May, 2008
May 29, 2008 at 9:00 am · Filed under Bugs, Favorites · By GreenMamba
Members have been reporting that sellers and items that they have added to their Favorites are vanishing without a trace. These are not instances of items expiring or being deleted by the seller, nor of sellers closing shop, which leaves behind a greyed-out box where the item/seller used to be. Some members report having to ‘heart’ the same sellers over and over again, only to have them continually disappear.
Despite these reports, RD says:
If you don’t see something in your favorites list anymore, it’s because it is unavailable for some reason.
If it is a listing, it may be deleted or in edit mode. If it’s a seller, they may no longer have an active account.
The favorites system is working properly, and as far as we’ve seen there have been no confirmed cases of favorites being lost.
If you have any information you believe to be evidence otherwise, please let us know! :]
Posted at 9:48 pm, May 28 2008 EST - Report this post
Click here to follow the current thread, and/or add your own experiences with this bug.
An older thread documenting the same issue can be found here.
May 22, 2008 at 3:14 pm · Filed under Features, Images, Listings · By JB
Etsy has released a new feature that allows you to arrange a listing’s photos after uploading the images. Before, you had to delete the photos and reupload them to change the order. Now each photo has little right and left arrows underneath it, which lets you move them around in any order.
source: this Storque article
May 22, 2008 at 3:08 pm · Filed under Categories · By JB
On Thursday, May 29 at 4PMish Eastern U.S. time, Etsy will be adding Collectibles as a top-level category.
The Collectibles category is for handmade items, and is intended to include dolls and doll accoutrements, figurines, miniatures, plush animals, and other “toys” for adult collectors. As well, some items of non-functional home decoration, such as ornaments, or a tole-painted teakettle that is for decoration only, will fit into this category.
source: this Storque article
Discuss the new category in this forum thread.
UPDATE:
The Collectibles category has been withdrawn for reconsideration.
May 18, 2008 at 8:14 pm · Filed under Bugs · By JB
Update May 27 by JB
RD has posted that the policies page bug may be fixed.
RevolvingDork
Etsy Admin
RevolvingDork says:
With much help from the community here in the forums, we were able to track down the issue and reproduce it — it was caused by a combination of old listing expiration code and shop activity.
We believe we have rectified the issue completely now, but we’d like to hear your experience — check to see if your policies are there as of the time of this posting. If not, try re-posting them. Let us know if they dissapear any time after that. :]
original article written May 18 by JB
The long-awaited Shop Policies page appears to have a bug, where the text a seller has entered in that section will vanish some time after it was saved.
This forum thread is where users are reporting the problem.
Etsy Admin has responded in the thread yesterday:
RevolvingDork says:
We haven’t been able to reproduce any occurance of “dissapearing” policies, and we haven’t seen anything in the logs that points to this happening.
Be sure to click the “Save Changes” button at the bottom of the Shop Policies page after you’re done entering them — if you don’t, your policies will not be saved. Also, look for the message “Your shop policies have been successfully updated.” — if you see that, we’ve received your data and it shouldn’t be going anywhere. :]
Posted at 12:14 pm, May 17 2008 EST
Despite the assumption that this is user error, many users have stated that they have clicked the “Save Changes” button. In many cases the policies are saved for a period of time and then they vanish later. Some users have re-added them multiple times, and they keep vanishing.
If you have experienced this bug please add your details to this forum thread.
If you have not experienced the bug (yet), I recommend saving the text to a Word or notepad file.
——————————————————
Editorial:
My own experience:
I added my shop policies on the day the shop policies page was released, May 15. I know they were saved correctly because other people viewed them and commented how quickly I had added them.
I checked them every day since then and they were always there. I have never edited them since adding them on May 15. They were still there yesterday May 17.
They are gone now. They seem to have vanished overnight while I was not even logged in.
my policies page today:
my policies page yesterday:
They were saved for 3 days and then vanished overnight.
Without me editing them or touching them.
* * * * *
UPDATE by Deja Vu (May 19, 2008):
Etsy Admin is asking for input in order to understand the issue better. If you have experienced this, please refer to this thread to provide information.
* * * * *
UPDATE by GreenMamba - 05/22/08
Prompted by a community outcry for better notification, a new Storque article has just been published - Tech Updates: Shop Policy Glitch
Update by JB, 5/23/08
RevolvingDork started a new thread to collect data for this bug. The previous thread is locked.
RevolvingDork says:
Hi everyone,
We’ve had reports of some sellers sporadically having their policy pages “cleared out” some time after they’ve updated their policies.
Finding the cause of this issue has been our number one priority, but we have so far been unable to reproduce the issue as described and it has therefore been very difficult to track it down.
We have just made some more changes that may solve the issue, but because we can’t reproduce it we can’t yet tell.
To help us out, please try populating your policy fields now, and let us know if they get cleared again after that.
If you do find that they’ve disappeared, please post the last actions you took before you noticed them being gone. It’s being triggered by a combination of events, so knowing what you’ve done directly before the policies are removed will be extremely helpful.
Thank you for your cooperation – we know you all put a lot of thought into your policies, and we want to make sure they stay there!
May 16, 2008 at 12:18 am · Filed under Miscellaneous, Site Terms, Site Use, policy change · By GreenMamba
In this Storque article by admins bethela, Community, emilybidwell, matt, SarahSays, stellaloella, TechUpdates, Etsy details changes to two core site documents, the D&Ds and the TOU. Here is the article in its entirety.
Dear Etsians,
It’s spring! Time to refresh and renew. And that’s exactly what we’ve been doing here at Etsy — a bit of spring cleaning. We brought out the site policies and noticed they were looking a little dusty, rusty and rough around the edges. So we’ve polished up the DOs & DON’Ts and Terms of Use and are pleased to present some shiny, new and improved updates!
Last week we posted a sneak peek preview of the proposed updates to get feedback from the community. After a very positive reception and a few minor tweaks, we’re ready to put these into effect today.
For the most part, the policies are still the same. We’ve reorganized and clarified the existing policies to address some concerns expressed by members over the past year. We have made a few changes and additions. This update is in response to questions and issues raised by our community; our aim was to make the policies easier to understand and to address some of the preceived “gray areas.” For your convenience, we’ll outline the basic changes below, but we expect every member to read through the updated DOs & DON’Ts and Terms of Use in their entirety.
Both documents have been reorganized to provide a more logical arrangement of information. The Terms of Use has been tightened up as strictly the legal agreement for using the site. The DOs & DON’Ts contain all our site-wide polices that pertain to specific features and functions of Etsy. The DOs & DON’Ts have also been reformatted out of the constraints of the “Do/Don’t” list structure.
Below is the Cliff’s Notes version of the updates. (This will look familiar to those who participated in the preview last week.) Please follow the links to see the specific section where these policies are defined.
Collective shops: The definition and requirements for collective shops have been clarified. (These are the rules for shops with multiple people involved.)
Conversations: Sending a Convo to notify a seller that they are featured in a Treasury list is no longer explicitly considered “spam.” Instead, common sense prevails — do not use Convos for advertising or promotional purposes.
Transaction disputes: Buyers and sellers are encouraged to communicate and resolve matters on their own. Transactions may only be reported in three situations: non-payment, fraud and non-delivery. Issues should only be reported after there has been an effort to resolve the issue between the buyer and seller.
Shop Policies: Sellers now have a dedicated page in their shops to outline personal policies on payment, shipping, returns/exchanges and more. Please note that your shop policies may not contradict any of Etsy’s site-wide policies. You can read more about the Shop Policies feature in this article: Hello Policy.
Non-payment time frame: We have removed the “three days to pay” policy. We trust our sellers to use good judgement in developing their policies and provide excellent customer service. We encourage all sellers to post their payment terms on their Shop Policies page.
Feedback: We’ve outlined the specific situations in which Etsy will consider removing feedback for members. You have up to 30 days from the date feedback was left to contest feedback. Additionally, we’ve expanded Kiss and Make-Up to allow members to resolve neutral (as well as negative) feedback issues on their own. Another feedback change we’ll be making soon: the ability to leave feedback will expire 90 days after the transaction date. That change will go into effect on July 1, 2008, so get your backlog of waiting feedbacks cleaned up before then.
Rules for listings: We’ve clarified a few of the long-standing gray areas, such as: defining vintage and supplies, conditional listings/upgrades, graphic design services and explicitly prohibited items.
Community: We’ve added an official anti-spam rule for the Forums and a policy prohibiting solicitation for donations in the community spaces.
Teams and Storque: Making a first time appearance in the DOs & DON’Ts are specific sections for participation in Teams and The Storque. Nothing here is really new; these polices just have a new home alongside all the others now.
Terms of Use: The alterations to the Terms of Use have been mostly cosmetic, so we won’t get in to the nitty-gritty here. We cleaned up the language to make it easier to understand and reorganized some information to more appropriate sections. We added a new section on Meetings and removed the section on Feedback (as this info is more appropriate for the DOs & DON’Ts). In general, the Terms of Use and DOs & DON’Ts complement one another.
The updated DOs & DON’Ts and Terms of Use are effective as of today, May 15, 2008. However, there are some changes that will impact existing sellers and shops, and we want to give everyone a fair amount of time to adjust and edit. As such, we are allowing everyone a grace period of seven weeks. The deadline for full compliance is June 30, 2008 (by the end of the day at midnight EDT, for those of you who are sticklers or procrastinators). The grace period only applies to compliance with the changed policies as mentioned in this article.
Be sure the email address in your Account Info is up-to-date; we use this address to send vital messages about your account. An email will be sent to all members about this policy update, as well as the recent Search and Category changes. We are revising the Help section (FAQs and Help Guides) to be consistent. If you’re interested in getting other important news sent directly to your inbox, subscribe to our Etsy News Alert emails.
If you’d like to comment, ask questions or discuss these updates to our policies, please join us in this Forum thread. Etsy Admin Beth (aka bethela) and Lauren (aka stellaloella) will also be hosting office hours in the Virtual Labs on Friday, May 16 at 3pm EDT to chat about the site policies.
May 8, 2008 at 3:00 pm · Filed under Site Terms, policy change · By quirke
In this Storque article, admin gives a preview of upcoming changes to site policies and rules.
Dear Etsians,
One of the things I love most about working at Etsy is that, as a company, we strive to work with our members. We actively engage in discussions with our community, listen to your concerns and use that insight to help us shape the site.
The DOs & DON’Ts of Etsy have been in place for about a year now, and during that time, we’ve gotten a lot of feedback from our community on these site policies, through the Forums, Virtual Labs and emails. Internally, we’ve spent several months gathering that info, discussing and reworking our policies to make them clearer and more balanced — and we’re now ready to share that work with you in a sneak preview.
Why a preview? As I mentioned, it’s important for us to get feedback from the community, to build the site together with you. We’ll be taking a few days to get your reactions and make any necessary final tweaks before we go live with the new DOs & DON’Ts.
For the most part, the policies remain the same, though we’ve reorganized things a bit. There are a handful of substantial changes, which I will highlight below. We’ve also published a special page where you can preview the updated DOs & DON’Ts in their entirety.
Reformatted: The most notable difference in this version is the format, and this is one of the key things we’d like your feedback on. The DOs & DON’Ts are no longer literally “Do/Don’t” statements. It became clear to us that this rigid format was not as helpful as we had originally anticipated. We’ve also added direct links to Help resources for each section. (Although the document isn’t literally “dos” and “don’ts” anymore, we’re keeping the name “DOs & DON’Ts” because our members already know this as the name for our site rules.)
Collective shops: The definition and requirements for collective shops have been clarified. (These are the rules for shops with multiple people involved.)
Conversations: Sending a Convo to notify a seller that they are featured in a Treasury list will no longer explicitly considered “spam.” Instead, common sense prevails — do not use Convos for advertising or promotional purposes.
Shop Policies: With the updated D&D, we’ll be launching a new feature; each seller will have a dedicated page in their shop to outline personal policies on payment, shipping, returns/exchanges and more. Please note that your shop policies may not contradict any of Etsy’s site-wide policies. (More info on this to come soon!)
Non-payment time frame: We’ve removed the site-wide “three days to pay” policy. We trust our sellers to use good judgement in developing their policies and provide excellent customer service.
Feedback: We’ve outlined the specific situations and time frame in which Etsy will consider removing feedback. We will also be tweaking the feedback system’s functionality: Kiss and Make Up will be available for neutral feedback and the ability to leave feedback will now expire 90 days after the transaction date.
Rules for listings: We’ve clarified a few of the long-standing gray areas, such as: defining vintage and supplies, conditional listings/upgrades, graphic design services and explicitly prohibited items.
Community: We’ve added an official anti-spam rule for the Forums and a policy prohibiting solicitation for donations in community spaces.
Teams and Storque: Making a first time appearance in the DOs & DON’Ts are specific sections for participation in Teams and The Storque. Nothing here is really new; these polices just have a new home alongside all the others now.
The Terms of Use, Help Guides and FAQs for the site will also be updated to reflect the changes in the DOs & DON’Ts. Those pieces will launch along with the final version of the DOs & DON’Ts. Once we gather your feedback and make changes (if needed), we will launch everything together. At that time, we will send an email notice to all members. We will also allow a grace period for all members to comply with the any changed policies.
You can see a preview of the revised D&D on their own special page here.
The accompanying forum thread is here.
May 7, 2008 at 4:57 pm · Filed under Forums · By quirke
Starting today, forum-goers will no longer be able to use obscene words in forum post titles. The same filters used in the chat rooms and Virtual Labs will now replace such words with alternates. The filters do not extend to the body of the post - they apply only to titles.
Stellaloella explains why in this thread post:
stellaloella says:
While registered members of Etsy have to be over the age of 18, the site is viewable by the general public. We strive to keep the “first impression” public areas of the site friendly for all audiences.
We have certain rules for the marketplace side of Etsy regarding the use of language and imagery in listings. We’ve had this filter in the chat rooms and Virtual Labs for a long time already. We recently decided to carry this over in to the forums by adding a simple filter to thread titles. This doesn’t prohibit the use of those words in the body of forum threads — much like sellers can show all in the second-fifth photos of a mature content listing.
May 6, 2008 at 5:15 pm · Filed under Forums · By quirke
In this Storque article, Marymary explains the new flagging system for forum posts.
Today, we launched a report this post feature to Etsy’s forums. The Community Team at Etsy always appreciates your help in keeping a lively and fun community atmosphere when participating in the forums and we hope this new feature will help make your posting experience run much smoother! The report this post feature should be used when you see a post that doesn’t fit within Etsy’s forum guidelines and you want to alert the Community Team.
At the bottom of every post, after the timestamp, is a blue link reading “Report this post”. Clicking on the link will bring you to a new screen where you are presented with the following options to select as a reason for reporting the post.
-Thread is in the wrong section of the forums.
-Post discusses private matters (transaction detail, feedback, copying, etc)
-Post is abusive or insulting to another member
-Post negatively “calls out” a specific user by name or identifiable hints
-Post is from an alternate or “sock puppet” account
There is also a box for additional comments.
Once you have filled out the necessary information in the submission form, just click submit report and your report will be sent directly to the community inbox completely anonymously! This should make the forums run a lot smoother and help the Community Team stay on top of concerns amidst the community in a timely fashion.
There is an accompanying forum thread here.
UPDATE:
There has been some confusion as to who exactly the report is anonymous to, so Matt has clarified in the thread:
matt says:
Hi,
I was wrong.
The reportee does not know they have been reported, but we are able to see the username of the reporter. in short, only you and Etsy will know you reported a post. Sorry, I was confused and spoke too soon.
Thanks, Matt
May 5, 2008 at 6:13 pm · Filed under Down Time, Etsy Communications, Site Maintenance · By JB
As reported in this Storque article, Etsy will now be using their old blog for emergency updates, if the main Etsy site goes down. The Storque is hosted on the same servers at the ETsy site so when the site is down, so is the Storque. The old Etsy blog is hosted on a different server, so it will still be up and can be used for emergency updates.
Etsy says:
Since we’ll only use this blog in the event that Etsy itself is totally unreachable for a significant amount of time (which means, I hope we never use it), you might want to make a note of the url now and bookmark the link. Typing the address in directly will be the only way to get there.
We have decided to use the off-site blog in lieu of emailing everyone for several reasons: it takes over 24 hours to send all Etsians an email; when our servers are down or unreachable we most likely can’t send any emails; and we’d be emailing thousands of people who don’t want to get an email.
UPDATE May 22, 2008
The site for updates in an Etsy emergency has been changed to fix.etsy.com.
Bookmark this siite and look there for updates when Etsy.com and the Storque blog are down.
May 5, 2008 at 6:03 pm · Filed under Chat, Etsy Communications, Events, The Future · By JB
As reported in this Storque article, Etsy is holding a chat to gather community input on the issue of Etsy sellers having employees. This issue has come up a few times recently in the Etsy forums.
The meeting is Friday May 9
6 pm Central European time zone
5 pm UK time time zone
12 noon eastern USA time zone
11 am central USA time zone
10 am mountain USA time zone
9 am pacific USA time zone
Join us for a discussion and feedback session about employees and your Etsy shop. Rob, aka Rokali, co-founder and CEO of Etsy, will be leading the workshop.
When: Friday, May 9, 12 noon (Eastern US time) times on the Virtual Labs schedule are displayed in your local time
Where: Treehouse Room, Virtual Labs
…
Agenda:
For those selling handmade goods: Are employees necessary for a seller to “make a living making things”? Are the items still “handmade”?
What sort of hired help is needed for handmade sellers? Is *what* potential employees do for the shop relevant?
Does the number of employees that a business has impact whether the shop belongs on Etsy? If so, how many is too many?
Are different rules necessary for sellers of commercial supplies and vintage goods? Are employees acceptable for these types of shops?
What sort of information do you need (for example, links to information about employment law) to grow a business that includes employees?
Should sellers who are outsourcing, involved in collectives, and employing people be approved by Etsy? What sort of approval process would you be interested in?
UPDATE Monday May 12 by JB:
The minutes to the meeting are here
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