About Commenting on Wedding Skulls
Posted by admin on Apr 14, 2009 in Non-Wedding | 4 commentsEarlier today, I discovered a couple of negative comments on one of my earlier posts – a profile of an Etsy seller. The commenters pointed out – rather passionately – that the seller I had profiled had responded badly to negative/neutral feedback placed on her etsy and ebay shops, and that she was seen as somewhat of a tyrant. One of the commenters asked that I take more care to research sellers before I profile them.
I’ve been pondering for the last half hour whether I should remove these comments or not. For now, I have removed them. Truthfully, I an trying to write a positive blog and I would prefer my commenters exhibited the same positivity.
I do research each seller extensively before I profile them. I check Etsy feedback. However, what I do NOT do is to read through nearly TWO THOUSAND positive feedbacks (which is how many this seller had) to find the 2 negative and 4 neautral feedbacks to see how she responded. I’m sorry. I just don’t have that much spare time on my hands.
My intention with profiling sellers and artisans is to show readers the kinds of wonderful products available for their ecclectic tastes. I make no negative reviews on this blog – I tell you where you can buy something, what it is, why you might want it and what I personally like about it. That’s all. The rest is up to you, intelligent reader. You can read a buyers feedback and decide if you still want to do business with them. You can assess for yourself the quality of the goods.
The wonderful thing about Etsy feedbacks is that they’re available for all to read. If the seller has conducted herself in an inappropriate manner, her feedback will speak for herself, and doesn’t need commentary on my blog. That isn’t fair to the seller or to my readers, who don’t want any part of a blog that takes pride in ‘calling out’ sellers.
I would like to state again that I reserve the right to delete or modify comments I deem to be rude/offensive/inappropriate for this blog. I would also love to hear from my readers – what do you guys think? Do you want to know when people say negative things about sellers on Wedding Skulls? Or would you prefer these discussions off this site?
I hardly think that 6 not good feedbacks out of 2000 is an issue, you can hardly say it’s a percentage worth worrying about after all you can’t please all of the people all of the time! It’s your site, do as YOU feel fit and keep up the good work!
I don’t think it’s your responsibility to research vendors’ backgrounds. Given the ratio of positive to negative feedback, it almost sounds like whoever left the comment had a bone to pick with the seller.
I don’t mention feedback ratings on sellers that I link to; I suppose that if I saw they were mostly negative I might issue a caveat (or not bother to feature them), but otherwise I don’t care to get involved in disputes that I know nothing about. (I do, however, try to mention experiences that I have personally had with vendors.)
It’s your blog, and you’re not the Internet Police. Point to what you think is cool, and let your readers make their own judgement.
(If it really bothers you, let me suggest that you put together some kind of tutorial post on “how to assess the reliability of an Etsy seller” and then link to it when you feature someone on Etsy.)
Thank you both. I was a bit shocked when I saw the comments yesterday. I don’t want to be the comment nazi – deleting and moderating the minute I see something I don’t approve of, and to an extent I agree with the commenters who I feel only wanted to warn other potential customers about someone they felt was a bad seller. I just don’t feel the venom was justified in the case.
Cowbebs – I think that’s a wonderful idea for a post! I’m off to work on it now!
That’s really sad. No one should have a say about anyone you want to feature. Hell, I say, even if they have a ton of negative feedback, if you like the person enough to feature them, it’s your business. Bad feedback is between the seller and the buyer. Odds are most of us wouldn’t be all into a shop if they did bad business. It really sucks to be put in a place to have to moderate negativity like that, but again it’s your blog and it’s your right!