New review system is live?!

[Alex.M]

5 minutes ago, uk1000 said:

So if they think ratings between 4.0 and 4.9 are actually more trustworthy why will they now start making people lose levels if their rating is <4.4 stars,  or < 4.6 stars or < 4.7 stars? 😕

exactly what I was thinking... it makes 0 sense.   It's also a mystery for me how is it possible that a 4-star review is more credible than a 5 star review ? Who on earth thinks that ?

[donnovan86]

1 minute ago, katakatica said:

In a way, I'm all for 'let your buyers' experiences speak', but with sudden changes (the level system at least will take a bit, but not the review system) that CLEARLY many aren't understanding, I'm confused. 

 

To be fair, they had this review system in beta for a month or so.. It's not exactly sudden. But the sad thing is, they are not changing it, at least for now anyway. 

2 minutes ago, katakatica said:

I'm also a bit nervous about having to keep a 4.7 rating when we are told that worse reviews are actually better.

 

Clearly they want to encourage more sales, because the more sales you have, the lower the impact any metric will have. Yet with AI and so many other things destroying the service market, not everyone can have hundreds of sales a month. So the truth is, any review can have a massive impact. And that's scary for sure. 

On top of that, there's the new success score, yet another thing to keep an eye on. I am sad they are not offering full transparency on how to improve that, just a few tips. And obviously a few tips won't really help that much, if your issue is within one of the hidden metrics.

[uptwee]

From what I understood. The "value for money" question has always been there. It's just that right now, it will be visible to us. I don't know. 

 

Here is the quote: Why did you add the ‘value for money’ question to the public feedback form?

Previously, freelancers couldn't see the submitted feedback for this question. Now, with this change, we are able to provide you with more insights into customer perceptions and make them more transparent. This also simplifies the feedback process, reducing the number of forms customers need to fill out and allowing for more feedback to be collected, while offering pricing insights. For example, consistently high ‘value for money’ scores may signal opportunities to raise Gig prices. It’s important to note, our analysis of historical data over the past 4 years shows consistent ‘value for money’ scores across pricing levels, ensuring dependable feedback as you navigate your freelancing journey.

[donnovan86]

1 minute ago, Alex.M said:

exactly what I was thinking... it makes 0 sense. 

To me, Alex, what this means is that they want levels to have more power. Right now pretty much every seller with some decent sales over the past few year/s is level 2. They don't want everyone to have 5 stars and be level 2. That's the majority of the active marketplace here (there might be way more people without a level that had no sales, but that doesn't matter), and again, it's clear they want more diversity. And of course, to have people work harder for better ratings. Even though, in some cases, reviews are random and even dozens of hours of work are not accurately represented by the review you receive. Which we all know already happened in a lot of cases.

[uk1000]

10 minutes ago, Alex.M said:

It's also a mystery for me how is it possible that a 4-star review is more credible than a 5 star review ? Who on earth thinks that

Because 100% 5 star reviews seems less realistic than ratings that have a few lower ratings in, since statistically there will probably always be at least a few people who aren't 100% happy with a product or service.

7 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

They don't want everyone to have 5 stars and be level 2. That's the majority of the active marketplace here (there might be way more people without a level that had no sales, but that doesn't matter), and again, it's clear they want more diversity.

So they could have created a level 3 above level 2 but below TRS to have more diversity and allowed more specific metrics for each.

Edited January 30 by uk1000

[vibronx]

3 minutes ago, uptwee said:

The "value for money" question has always been there.

It hasn't been in the private feedback form for at least a year. I don't remember if it was in there before. It might have been.

[donnovan86]

Just now, uk1000 said:

Because 100% 5 star reviews seems less realistic than ratings that have a few lower ratings in, since statistically there will probably always be at least a few people who aren't 100% happy with a product or service.

Exactly. I particularly found more sellers that are newer (joined within the past year, year and a half) and they have perfect ratings. One of them was a writer, and they had grammar mistakes within the gig description. I clearly think something fishy is happenning there. So on one side, I am ok with the new system, if buyers are honest and rate us the way they truly think, objectively. The problem is that people always have bias, and that can lead to random reviews that don't reflect the work quality. And for me, that's an issue.

I agree with you, there's no way that everyone will be happy with your work. Either people have different expectations, they are extremely frugal or picky, so you can't really have perfection across the board.

Just now, vibronx said:

It hasn't been in the private feedback form for at least a year. I don't remember if it was in there before. It might have been.

It was at first, I guess they removed it later. Regardless, they do want to shift stuff from private to public reviews. I am questioning, where will private reviews stand... if some features are shifted to public reviews, then will private reviews still matter? Are they revamping those too?  

[lalitsdmittal]

On some order the new system is shows but on some orders it is old.

[uptwee]

4 minutes ago, vibronx said:

It hasn't been in the private feedback form for at least a year. I don't remember if it was in there before. It might have been.

That's why I'm confused about them saying and I quote" Previously, freelancers couldn't see the submitted feedback for this question. Now, with this change, we are able to provide you with more insights into customer perceptions and make them more transparent" which indicates that it has been part of the private feedback. 

[donnovan86]

1 minute ago, lalitsdmittal said:

On some order the new system is shows but on some orders it is old.

I think it's based on either the order date or when people review the order. Regardless, if they said it's live, then it's live 😄 It might take a bit to update.

[emmaki]

It's $. Manually vetting (new) sellers and T&Sing bad experiences takes humans. Right now, everything (OK, a lot of things) is automated.

How do you sort out the bad apples from the good? How do you know if a seller really did just make an innocent mistake or if they're a serial bad apple but know the systems and how to dodge them? Etc. etc.

It's a game of cat and mouse using AI. Since this isn't being properly launched until next month (? still playing catch up) it might take a bit longer for the baddies to catch up and find new systems around this (I mean, it's not that hard to find fake reviews for sale online if someone really wanted to do that) so...

....and it's just so weird that everything is focused on this narrow 4.2 - 4.7 band (literally half a star). A high volume seller can get away with a LOT more rogue behavior than a $$$$ seller. Will AI see that? Because a human could after quite a lot of investigation. So Fiverr thinks that 4 - 4.9 is "more trustworthy"?

On behalf of all low volume sellers on Fiverr: This sucks badwords. Look at TopTal: they won't accept anyone unless they're the top 3%. Whether that's true or not, assuming the tests and interview process is as rigororous as they claim, those sellers are at least on an equal footing when it comes to abilities/expectations/outcomes etc.

On Fiverr, an amateur hobbyist with low prices and mediocre skills can make a lot more sales to a lot more customers who are more easily pleased (see: value for money/expectations etc) than idk, some uber-pro who has been doing X professionally for 20 years and has worked with big brands and charges $5k dayrates. The uber-pro gets fewer orders and - believe me, I know this - a lot of "plz discount" requests as well as people who buy and make a big deal of how much they spent.

That has always made me nervous due to the expectancy. I think the time has finally come to turn on Request to Buy. I don't want to work with people who are acting like they've just given me their life savings. I never have. Oh well, at least Request to Buy exists. 

 

 

[donnovan86]

2 minutes ago, emmaki said:

I think the time has finally come to turn on Request to Buy.

That's a great idea, @emmaki. Because it becomes way more unpredictable to figure out what review you're getting with new buyers. One buyer can ruin your gig score for a month, and that can lead to losing your level. 

Based on the new strategy they have, I guess they expect a lot of people to lose their level 2. That's why they added a transitional period. 

[emmaki]

I think my profile says "has experience with business" and I really do prefer to work with them. My most problematic buyers are always "solopreneurs" who haven't learned to trust their project fully to others yet. I mean, I get that, but they're the most likely to micromanage and its their limited budget which they could be spending on (whatever) but instead they've had to spend it all on me.

So you really do have to go "above and beyond" to hit some pie in the sky metric. I know I don't hit it when they don't review me 🙂

Which is also why I have the N/A. 

Meanwhile, at Fiverr (just imagine an Israeli flag....)

[zerlina84]

I just want to add 3 things

1) I know they say it's shown by research - and I've read that in other places as well - but I really don't understand how lower scores are more "trustworthy" than 5 star ratings. I do understand that it seems more "human" because restaurants and stores rarely have perfect scores. But if I'm torn between 2 interesting sellers (or restaurants, for that matter), one with 4.7* and another with 5* I'm pretty sure I'm going to go to with the 5*. I don't know, it's all a bit subjective, but to make a statement like that is a bit weird to me. 

2) The only thing I really like about that page is the part about them giving us updates about our progress towards TRS.  Now that's awesome!

3) I'm very happy about our existing reviews not being affected by this mess, but I find it absolutely unfair for new sellers or more recent ones. But hey, I've got my own problems to deal with

Edited January 30 by zerlina84

[emmaki]

 

This.... smells like an easy way to reward review manipulation (aka paid reviews) to me. So, let's say a seller has an unfortunate experience with a buyer and gets a 4 star review. Oh no! It's time for a trip to the fake review store to remove that disgustingly unfair blip and stay on track for TRS! 

(unlikely to work, I'm just gaming a common perspective). OK, so the marketplace gets a bit more dynamic and accurately reflects performance today. Does this mean sellers are going to ping-ping between levels? What about the whole # of gigs people can have? If a seller is ping-ponging, how does that work with gigs? What if a lvl 1 seller drops to a 79% inbox response rate but goes somewhere to beg a bunch of people to message them? Is that gaming the system? 

So we don't have all the details yet, but what if the score system drops under whatever but the other stuff is above? Is that day-by-day? Is one more important than the other? 

I have no idea how to make gigantic screenshots smaller on here btw. 

And why is all the language on that page about advancing and new sellers? Sure, it's positive if you put it in that light, but what about the reverse? People who have been TRS and kept it for years and kept on top as thet gamification performance net squeezes even more out of them? And, in turn, those new sellers who eventually "make it"? 

What is the reward for "making it" at the end? Because the hard work begins when you reach the top, and it seems Fiverr isn't really trying to look after the mental health (and potentially physcial due to stress) of those sellers. Does that sound a bit hysterical? Maybe, but there are plenty of studies out there about how gamification has harmful addictive properties.

 That's one thing when it's tied to a mobile game, quite another when its tied to your work. I recall that many leaders in big tech don't let their kids use their own tech.

I know Fiverr staff are required to create a seller account so they "understand" the processes, but do they really? I can't see how a couple of "sells" on a new seller profile (I'm guessing) would help them to understand. But I'm pretty sure they're not grinding to the top only to get all of this nonsense. 

Anyway, shouting at the sky, I know. All anyone can do is try to disconnect the psychological impact of gamification from their Fiverr "career", but how? Now the pressure is on daily. For everyone. In a battleground of .5 star across a 5 star range.

With an extra score thing because why not? 

I hope this falls foul of the AI EU act. 

[emmaki]

I have to admit, this made me smile. Well done to that HQ sadist! Fiverr really loves us after all...

[emmaki]

P.S. Fiverr, please cite your sources

[maitasun]

 

[visualstudios]

From Fiverr's own materials:

They say themselves that "consistently high value for money means opportunities to raise gig prices".

This would naturally drop it - so the goal seems to be to have average "value for money reviews". They are clearly saying "if your value for money is always high, raise your prices until it isn't".

However, they've raised the cut off for levels again, to 4.7 for top rated. 

How can both these things make sense at the same time, since having a consistent 3/4 stars on value for money means you can't keep the 4.7 necessary review average to be at the top level? This is contradictory.

Edited January 30 by visualstudios

[emmaki]

I..... 

Sellers will still want 5 star reviews because only scores between 4.2 and 4.7 matter. Effectively, you need 5 star reviews for stability and to reduce the stress of constant demotion/promotion (let's see, one feeds endorphins/dopamine, the other ??? - and isn't that bad for your mental health and how your brain functions, and now Fiverr is dialing it up? There's already enough sellers who have meltdowns over losing levels!). This in turn fuels "cheating" and/or eventual burnout.

OK, and of non-constructive feedback where a buyer is deliberately setting out to harm a buyer and makes threats about such? This is more of a cheaper seller problem, but AFAIK, Fiverr isn't planning to change much in how they assess disputed reviews - see valued autonomy - and of course we all know CS can take a few "goes" to actually read the issue. I wonder what the stats look like on people giving up? Ironic, then, that sellers are to become subject to the autonomy of various AI systems feeding into it with zero regulatory oversight.  Yet.

I like the bit about how "Fiverr is committed to address valid concerns to maintain a fair and reliable platform for both freelancers and customers". Are you really, Fiverr? @Kesha, I'm sure you've seen my EU AI post. Would you like to get someone from Fiverr to comment about how this current system as it stands falls in line with anticipated changes should this act go through? Would Fiverr be able to continue with this system as designed, or would it need to adapt it? If they would need to adapt it, why redesign it so poorly in the first place; Fiverr can hardly be unware of this major threat to how they currently run their business (i.e. overeliance on AI systems to cut costs)

Don't worry Kesha. You don't need to pass it on. You and I both know nobody will respond. Including you because *awkward!*. Which again brings me back to the word transparency that y'all keep throwing about. Please stop throwing it about. "Opaque" is a great word too. 

Now, please excuse me while I go throw myself into a pit of ravenous wolves for some light stress relief. 

 

[catwriter]

1 hour ago, emmaki said:

Am I thick or is this just complicated?

You're not thick.

And also, this is a kill me now situation.

[vibronx]

11 minutes ago, emmaki said:

Sellers will still want 5 star reviews because only scores between 4.2 and 4.7 matter. Effectively, you need 5 star reviews for stability and to reduce the stress of constant demotion/promotion (let's see, one feeds endorphins/dopamine, the other ??? - and isn't that bad for your mental health and how your brain functions, and now Fiverr is dialing it up? There's already enough sellers who have meltdowns over losing levels!). This in turn fuels "cheating" and/or eventual burnout.

Exactly! I have said so many times that the way Fiverr is can be really bad for a seller's mental health. I have felt it myself, so I know.

It's one of the things I suggested they focus on a couple of years ago when I was asked directly. Instead, it seems they just went and made it way worse. 

I wonder what the success scores are... Probably something that will be incredibly stressful as well.

Edited January 30 by vibronx

[visualstudios]

I remember a time when to be a successful professional you had to be competent, and do what you promised the client you would do, on time and on budget. Do a good job, and that is enough.

Now, it's not. You need to be extraordinary, all the time. Above and beyond (while not being compensated above and beyond). This is a recipe for failure and burnout. Nobody can be amazing all the time, and nobody should be punished for that.

[visualstudios]

Conga rats shows itself to be prophetic, after all. 

This is the end goal - a rat race, all the rats forming a conga line.

[donnovan86]

4 minutes ago, vibronx said:

I wonder what the success scores are... Probably something that will be incredibly stressful as well.

Based on what I heard, it's pretty much the satisfaction rate that was a private metric until now. They changed it a bit, I think, and they are showing us some of the things we can do to improve. But I am certain a lot of those metrics are still unavailable and private. At least we know when and if we have a low buyer satisfaction rate.