Locked
Discussion interactions are currently paused.
Not solved yet. Members help members. MHM unresolved?
Summary: der_einzig_unwahre_heino initiated a discussion about the effectiveness and accessibility of the 'Mitglieder helfen Mitgliedern' forum, questioning if the access restrictions are appropriate given the many unresolved questions. stubenkram and other participants explained that not all problems receive timely attention from mentors due to the forum's setup and that unresolved labels often result from members not marking issues as solved. Participants debated the advantages and disadvantages of the forum's structure, with some noting that limited response capability prevents topic drift but may hinder timely solutions. Differences in opinion emerged regarding the necessity of maintaining access restrictions, reflecting varied user experiences in forum interactions.
Has the forum -Members help members- actually proven its worth? And are the access restrictions that apply there appropriate, given the fact that most questions still say: "Not solved yet"?
mod-pedram
·1 week agoHello everyone,
Since the discussion here has unfortunately drifted a bit away from the actual topic and the tone has become increasingly confrontational, we have closed this thread.
Thank you for your understanding.
Kind regards
Your eBay moderation team
roter_rauch
·1 week agoI’m demanding that this thread be renamed to "Tribunal".
Ok, joke aside. But seriously: the whole discussion makes no sense anyway, because the question assumes a causal connection that doesn’t exist. So whether "access restrictions appropriate" would be, if it’s mostly marked as "not yet solved". But the two have nothing to do with each other. Because the button is only rarely activated. For whatever reasons.
That should/may (to be fair) only be activated by the asker, but he/she doesn’t have to and usually doesn’t. Which does not mean "unsolved" = problem = a scolding for the MhMs. That is neither logical nor fair.
If something in MhM itself doesn’t sit right with the askers or their question got lost, they can speak up there themselves. After all, they buy or sell on Ebay and should be able to do that.
Taking on the "advocate" job for others who aren’t even sitting here at the table yet is usually problematic anyway. That applies to –unwahren_heino just as much as it does to the askers in MhM.
Have a nice day. ;-)
stubenkram
·1 week ago · EditedThis mocking post about "the complainers" is unworthy of you, voli-maus. It looks like nothing more will come from the topic starter. He stirred up some trouble here, which was probably what he wanted. If I haven’t miscounted: so far five mentors and three members have responded to the opening question. Further opinions on this are probably not going to come from the members anymore. Most people here probably couldn’t care less about this topic. But for some it may have left them speechless, others (like me) have already said what they wanted to say, and some may be afraid of putting their foot in it.
That the question of why members in the board "Members help members" cannot reply to other members’ posts keeps coming up in this community should not be surprising. That alone is down to the misleading name.
That the mentors in this topic are mainly talking about the not-clicked "Solved" button and don’t like it that many people asking questions just disappear again after getting help is also not surprising. I don’t like that either.
That there are still unanswered questions in the board "Members help members" and in the forum was mentioned by me and others. Why do some people feel so personally offended by that? After all, no one here has written that the mentors are doing a bad job, should answer every request, or even have to be there around the clock. I do recognize the work the mentors do. I wouldn’t even have the patience to keep answering the same questions over and over again like a broken record.
What surprises me is the aggressive reaction from some mentors when it comes up that members in the board "Members help members" cannot reply to other members’ topics. That happened to me many years ago too, as I wrote at the beginning.
There are only very few members left in the community who are not only interested in their own concerns, but also in those of others. A large share of all topics that are created now ends up in and stays in the board "Members help members". That is also where the wish for a way to participate in this board, as expressed by Iidor3073, comes from. I’m not desperate for that, but I would sometimes simply find it practical if members could comment there.
I think it’s inappropriate that bootyooty is making fun of this topic here, and thus also of the members who wrote in it. And since I’m at it: for most members, the mentors represent eBay in their place. So the way members are responded to does not go unnoticed. Every mentor has a different writing style, and that’s a good thing. But some of the rudeness in the board "Members help members" is truly off-putting. Even worse and more hurtful is when you ask a question and get laughed at by the mentors for it. That happened to me here many years ago too. That was not "customer care".
In my second post here I tried to describe the disadvantages that these many locked topics cause in the community in my opinion, and what effect they have. That they also have advantages and that I also gain a lot of information from these locked topics had already been mentioned in my first post as well.
Why, in a topic like this, where people are asking whether the board "Members help members" has proven itself and whether it is appropriate that members are not allowed to write there, does it turn into an argument and into a "mentors versus members" thing? Is the idea really so completely far-fetched for the mentors that some members want to help out, meaning support other members and thus also the mentors?
In any case, I find the course this topic has taken very regrettable. I did not want to attack anyone here, but I have clearly been misunderstood by some. Of course that is also due to the length of my posts, which are no longer read but at best skimmed. That’s why this was my last post in this topic.
bootyooty
·1 week ago"That the question of why members in the board "Members help members" cannot reply to other members' posts keeps coming up in this community should not be surprising. That is due solely to the misleading name."
Seriously? This keeps being asked again and again for years, and as a mentor I’m not surprised anymore either; I just find it downright ridiculous.
https://community.ebay.de/forum/fragen-zur-community-17/topic/mitglieder-helfen-mitglieder-sollte-hei%C3%9Fen-mentoren-helfen-mitglieder-1811/
https://community.ebay.de/forum/fragen-zur-community-17/topic/rubrik-mitglieder-helfen-mitgliedern-7474/
https://community.ebay.de/forum/fragen-zur-community-17/topic/wer-darf-unter-der-rubrik-mitglieder-helfen-mitgliedern-antworten-6488/
https://community.ebay.de/forum/fragen-zur-community-17/topic/antworten-von-allen-mitgliedern-w%C3%A4ren-auch-hilfreich-2975/
https://community.ebay.de/forum/fragen-zur-community-17/topic/ich-w%C3%BCnsche-mir-8694/
The above threads are just a small, plain selection... a lot has been archived or removed outright when things once again got completely out of hand and people preferred to single out individual users. 😎
sunrise1605
·1 week agoI keep noticing that any opinion/question/doubt, whatever it may be, about the MhM immediately sets off emotions, with the corresponding reactions.
Honestly, I don't get it; you could just discuss the topic objectively, answer it, or leave it be.
I also knew this would start up again with this thread.
Whether TE just wanted to stir things up is, however, just as much a baseless accusation unworthy of you @stubenkram
bootyooty
·1 week agoWhat’s going on?
To be really specific: when threads get locked or even deleted, 99.9% of the time they’re not ones that were started in the MHM.
sunrise1605
·1 week agoWhat's up?
Then just read through the thread again, or do you think it's like a totally normal one about non-paying buyers, for example?
stubenkram
·1 week ago · Edited@sunrise1605
I didn’t say that TE only wanted to stir up trouble. I wrote this:
To me, his opening post did come across as somewhat provocative. He won’t begrudge me my assumption/accusation, though; that’s not how I see him. And if he does, then he can speak up about it.
Also, I think he could have made another comment here as well. It’s pretty convenient to start a “topic with explosive potential” and then politely hold back afterward.
Edit:
My sentence here was referring to a post by voli-maus, which was probably removed this morning.
sunrise1605
·1 week agoWell then, the question is: why is this even a controversial topic?
Some mentors, even in the past, come on this topic like a lioness defending her cub 😄
I don't understand why people immediately feel so attacked about it.
Whether the opening post is provocative or not, you can be mistaken too, I can too.
bootyooty
·1 week ago · EditedI think it's inappropriate that bootyooty is making fun of this topic here and thus also of the members who wrote in it.
Who do you think you are, anyway, to accuse me of something like that?
stubenkram
·1 week ago · EditedI’m someone who, unfortunately, often doesn’t realize quickly enough when it’s better to leave a so-called "discussion".
I’m also someone who reads other people’s posts before replying and takes a moment to think about what they were trying to achieve and what they might have meant.
So you think these topics are ridiculous. But the members who wrote in them aren’t? If that’s the case, then I’m sorry.
Maybe we just have a different sense of humor. 😉 But I did find this very funny in this context:
If a member were to critically mention on the board "Members help members" that members there cannot reply to other members’ posts, such a topic would probably not be deleted. Quite right. There are several reasons for that, and they are completely clear to me.
I only wrote here in the topic again because I was tagged and now was addressed directly by you again.
It’s not possible to reach an understanding/approximation/discussion here in the topic. Please don’t mention me or my posts here anymore. I won’t respond to it anymore.
Things are already being deleted here and that means I’m now finally out.
voli-maus
·1 week agouhm, @lidor3073 ,
the mentors are volunteers in the MHM and have a completely normal life: that includes children, grandchildren, going to work.
The lovely employees of ebay are there every day from about 8:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m., and on weekends until 8:00 p.m., ready to help, really.
Not always immediately, but in a timely manner.
The complaining about the mentors really gets on my nerves, seriously. 😤
lidor3073
·1 week agoDear @voli-maus
I never complained about you ☝️ please note THAT! I also didn’t demand any justification. I simply pointed out that sometimes replies take a while, and then I’d like to help and can’t. ☝️😏
Don’t feel attacked 😉😊 I only mean well. I’m not online 24/7 either. Even less so now. 😊
bootyooty
·1 week ago*lol... same old story every year...
If it had NOT proven itself, MHM would probably hardly exist in this, by now, third community.
The fact that “unsolved” suddenly stands out more now than unresolved posts did in the old forum?
That’s hilarious. Back then we used to call threads like that “summer slump.”
What also doesn’t seem to have struck you yet is that there are about 2/3 fewer threads per day than in the old forum. ;)
It also goes unmentioned that back then the MHM members used to handle everything together with Steffi, Miri and Patrick, before the hard-working staff here help out every day. BACK then nobody crowed that users would have to wait too long for answers.
Have a nice day.
voli-maus
·2 weeks agoIt should be so that the person asking the question marks an answer as solved.
That’s how it was in the old community.
Unfortunately, some question askers often marked the wrong post as solved.
A sentence with " Thanks" is not a solution.
And yes, the mentors can "unmark as solved.
Now, unfortunately, it’s the case that some question askers post a concern and are then never seen again.
lidor3073
·2 weeks ago@stubenkram
Exactly that, and that’s how often I’d like to reply. Unfortunately, then that’s not possible.
petersmodellbahnstuebchen
·2 weeks agoMoin @der_einzig_unwahre_heino @stubenkram
In MhM, a post can only be marked as solved by the original poster themselves, the mentors, and the Ebay community team.
Many members don't know this and, once their problem has been solved, have disappeared.
Of course, a mentor could set the “checkmark” to solved at any time if he / she thought so. But personally, I don't see that as my job if I haven't actively contributed to the solution myself.
Given the replies I sometimes read in other boards, I'm glad that in MhM only a certain group of people can reply and solve things.
Kind regards from the Baltic Sea
Peter
roter_rauch
·2 weeks agoImportant point and cause of the visual mess. Maybe “solved” just shouldn’t be offered anymore. It was hardly used even in the old community view. ;-)
stubenkram
·2 weeks agoI think that @der_einzig_unwahre_heino was not talking about whether the "Solved" button works flawlessly and/or is pressed regularly if the topic starter’s request in the board "Members help Members" had been answered.
In view of the many unresolved topics, he asked whether this board has proven itself and whether it would be appropriate for "members-only" users not to have a reply option there.
@petersmodellbahnstuebchen Who or what exactly do you mean by that? Are these replies in the forum unqualified and the writers incompetent? Or do you mean something else?
I also see that there are certain advantages to the fact that in the board "Members help Members" only the respective topic starter and a selected group of people can reply. Ideally, these topics are short, compact, and the (qualified) replies are limited to the topic starter’s immediate concern.
However, it cannot be denied that these locked topics also bring some disadvantages with them:
In this board, topics also end up and remain there in which members address the entire community. So they may not only want feedback from the mentors, but also want to discuss with other members and hear their opinions and experiences. At first, the topic starter does not yet see that their topic is locked for that, because there is no clear indication of it.
In the community, the "Locked" button does not come across as inviting, but as very off-putting. Since it is often visible in the overall number of topics, members are repeatedly given the impression that posts from them in the community are not allowed or unwanted.
Since in the board "Members help Members" only the topic starter and a selected group of people can reply, every member who has a similar question or wants to add something is forced to create another topic.
The result is, at times, a large number of topics with the same or similar content. That makes it harder to keep an overview in the board and in the community, and that is also why the questions of the people asking sometimes remain completely unnoticed. Many similar requests, all of which are (supposed to be) answered, also create a lot of work. I don’t find that practical. Answering the same kind of questions over and over again then also leads to stereotypical or "annoyed" replies from some mentors.
The questioner is not always understood correctly, and the mentors do not always have a suitable solution ready. Other members then cannot help, because they have no reply option. So they may send the questioner a direct message. But then the community does not learn about the possible solution. Or they create another topic that contains their suggested solution. That is also work and once again one more topic.
Presumably, the mentors are entirely free to decide which requests they leave unanswered. But if members in the board "Members help Members" could also respond directly to the requests, there might be fewer questions without answers. The board would then also have the right name.
petersmodellbahnstuebchen
·2 weeks agoHey @stubenkram
my statement that the Solved button works was an answer to your question:
"Are you sure the "Solved button" already works for everyone?"
And I definitely won’t answer "Who or what exactly do you mean by that?" here in public.
stubenkram
·2 weeks ago · EditedOkay, Peter. Since you also tagged me, I automatically took your reply as referring to me. So if it’s my posts in the community that you find unqualified, incompetent, or otherwise disruptive/annoying, then you’re welcome to tell me that, publicly too.
By the way, I do not at all consider myself competent when it comes to any questions concerning the functions and concerns of Ebay. But I have many years of experience with internet forums and know what members like and what they don’t. They don’t like locked topics, for example.
roter_rauch
·2 weeks ago@stubenkram sorry for butting in, but read it again, there was absolutely nothing in there formulated as a personal comment about your posts here. ;-))
perfect-sally
·2 weeks agoI actually wanted to stay out of this here since I consider this discussion unnecessary, but now I do have to respond.
If we were to write here what the members like, we'd be completely in the wrong place and could apply to be phone jokers, because that's how it is with them.
stubenkram
·2 weeks ago@roter_rauch I may have mistakenly taken this sentence from Peter to refer to myself, because he also tagged me:
That’s why I asked whether he meant my posts in the community by that.
@perfect-sally Who’s demanding that of you then? Certainly not me.
I wrote that members in internet forums don’t like closed topics. And that’s likely the same here in this community.
lidor3073
·2 weeks ago@petersmodellbahnstuebchen
Then you should maybe just think those remarks. Because they inevitably lead to disputes and uncertainty. At least that’s how it is for me, and I assume for @stubenkram as well.
petersmodellbahnstuebchen
·1 week agoHey @lidor3073
my last comment in this thread on this topic, except if @der_einzig_unwahre_heino still has a question:
If I only said every thought I had, I wouldn’t need to write here as a mentor anymore.
That would also be a solution. But I will only coordinate that with the Ebay community team and the other mentors, not with individual users.
lidor3073
·1 week ago@petersmodellbahnstuebchen
That’s a shame, and I mean that quite sincerely.
I sometimes keep my thoughts to myself here. Still, I always try to stay loyal.
This morning, for example, I could already have answered some topics, since apparently no one was around yet. The authors had to wait a very long time.
roter_rauch
·2 weeks ago · EditedMy answer would be: yes, definitely. But a kind of quick "check" isn't possible, since/whether things are rarely or never marked as "solved". Then as now.
Are the access restrictions justified? No – but only on the assumption that questions would not be solved. Which, 1.) is not the case, even though 2.) hardly any "solved" markers appear.
There’s nothing causal to gain from that. Those are two separate, independent discussions. ;-)
stubenkram
·2 weeks ago · EditedHello @roter_rauch
But there are unanswered requests in the board "Members help members". For example, this one here, to which I had also linked above, among others:
https://community.ebay.de/forum/mitglieder-helfen-mitgliedern-16/topic/mehrfache-anzeigen-12284/
This request may be closely related to other topics in the forum for which there is still no satisfactory solution.
It’s about identical or almost identical auction offers and Buy It Now offers appearing multiple times, as well as multiple price proposals that I received, even though I had only clicked on such offers. A member here suspects that these offers are being posted multiple times on purpose, although that contradicts the rules. I rather suspect a technical defect. Now, two days ago, a seller got in touch under the link who would like to stop his offers from appearing three or four times. There has been no visible response to that yet.
hasjana
·2 weeks agoof course, it’s up to the mentors where / when they reply - we’re not employed here and don’t have to be present in the forum 24/7 ... you just check in when you have time
if I see in the overview that quite a few replies have already been posted, I sometimes don’t even open individual topics; with other topics, I directly tag a staff member or tell the OP that they should better post the contribution in the "normal" discussion forum, etc.
lidor3073
·2 weeks ago@stubenkram and @der_einzig_unwahre_heino
So that it stays clearer, I’m writing separately and not replying to the comment, otherwise it gets lost.
If I may add my (not so) fitting Bautzner to that:
Yesterday I read two topics from two topic creators - similar situation (shipment was delivered abroad, but eBay refunds the purchase price because of allegedly too long delivery time and the buyer opening a case). One of the topics was under "private buying and selling" - it wasn’t read by the mentors or eBay staff and stayed online for a long time without a reply. I then linked a mentor there and asked them to bring in an eBay staff member. That worked too, the topic got moving. The similarly related case was in "Members help members" and the topic creator had already posted it for the second time. No reply had come by then. I then inserted this link to the topic into the one I was supposed to comment on and once again asked a mentor to tag an eBay staff member. So after two attempts and intervention from me, the topic creator finally got some kind of help approach (even if I don’t necessarily welcome it, but that’s another matter).
I find it impractical the way it is right now. Sometimes I see "resolved", sometimes the same topics duplicated and tripled, and sometimes hardly any replies at all.
That’s my personal opinion. Kind regards and have a nice weekend.
stubenkram
·2 weeks ago · EditedHello @der_einzig_unwahre_heino
Are you sure the "Solved" button already works for everyone? 😉
I think you can somehow apply if you want to become a mentor, so that even as a "regular member" you can post and help in the board "Members helping members." Maybe that would be something for you? It seems there are currently only a handful of mentors, who might welcome some reinforcements?
One of the few positive changes in this community for me is that there is now a clear warning in every topic in the board "Members helping members" that the topic is closed and I can’t write there. There’s also no reply button anymore.
(It actually happened to me once in the past that I had typed out a longer reply there, which I then couldn’t send. At the time I had a similar technical problem as the topic starter, but I suspected a different cause. So I typed my text a second time and opened another topic with it. In it I also mentioned that I find it very impractical - even for the mentors - when, for the same problem, numerous new topics with almost identical content have to be created at the same time. This sentence of mine was deliberately (?) misunderstood and I was publicly slapped down. At least that can’t happen to me there again now.)
As far as I know, the mentors work on a voluntary basis and it should be up to them in which and in how many topics they write, express their personal opinion, give hints, suggest solutions, or tag an eBay employee who may then come to help. I don’t think there are exact guidelines for the mentors on where and what they write, or that they have to fulfill certain duties or handle and answer a certain number of requests.
I find the fact that some requests get no response at all much more problematic than missing solutions in the "mentors board." This is not only the case in the board "Members helping members." When things are busy, some topics simply slip through.
Another problem is post moderation. Topics and replies that contain images are often not shown until hours later. This also applies to replies in an illustrated topic that don’t include images, i.e. contain only text. The topic is often already at the top, you search in vain for the new replies there - but you only see the new replies if you wrote them yourself. So if a mentor asks for a screenshot and the member uploads that screenshot, no one except that member will see this reply and further comments in the topic. That is absurd and also leads to wrong reactions.
In a topic with images, further replies from the 15th comment onward are "swallowed up." You can only see them under the link "show more replies," and if you have the post sorting set to "newest first," you can no longer see those newer comments at all.
For example, in this topic https://community.ebay.de/forum/seller-lounge-22/topic/mehrfachlisting-der-selben-artikel-zweiter-versuch-11965/ I linked to this unanswered request: https://community.ebay.de/forum/mitglieder-helfen-mitgliedern-16/topic/mehrfache-anzeigen-12284/ It’s about a similar problem. But my link is in reply no. 19 and can only be found if you have the post sorting set to "oldest first."
Apparently it works quite well as a funnel, because that’s where you end up automatically if you can’t get any further on the help pages and want to "ask the community." Maybe this information text should be expanded with the sentence that "regular members" can’t reply there:
At that point, you still can’t see that all topics there are locked.
That’s why I would think it would be good if it were clear from the topic starter’s text that this is not a request, but that a discussion with many other members is desired (or that "crowd wisdom" is being asked for on this or that question), and that the topic would then be moved in the forum to a more suitable board. But mentors probably can’t move topics at all.
"Members helping members" may also have proven itself because the topics are usually very short and easy to follow, since only very few people can write in them. That sometimes prevents topic drift and "unnecessary chatter."
The person asking doesn’t always get help there; above all, they sometimes definitely don’t hear what they want to hear, 😉 but I often found the replies there very helpful. What someone else asks and has explained to them, I no longer need to ask.
If you’ve been on eBay for a while and have been in the community several times, you know what the board "Members helping members" is about and can think about whether you want to start your topic there or rather in another board.