Official feedback thread re: the new leveling system

[lievevandyck]

Just now, arianelaurent said:

Also, why do this update on a weekend?!! 

Yes, how to ruin your weekend....

[newsmike]

13 minutes ago, palmreader37 said:

Same here. All gigs but one dropped one point and my overall success score dropped from 4 to 3. Nice work Fiverr, really good motivation to continue working for a seller that was TRS for over 7 years...I guess I was a different person back then. 

But you must have known this would happen, right? 

 

Edited February 24 by newsmike

[ahunyady]

12 minutes ago, williambryan392 said:

Just a thought, but as they 'tweak' things, e.g. not taking some cancelations into account, this will improve some seller success scores, and if your seller  success score is relative to others it could be the reason you've seen it drop.

There can't be many I guess. You are an OG! Fiverr started in Feb 2010, what month did you join?

I have a gig with one pre-requirements cancellation (the only cancellation). It says the gig is strongly negatively affected by cancellations even though there's still a message on the gig that the cancellation doesn't affect my metrics. It dropped from 8 to 7 today, despite having several 5-star reviews and no other negative issues since last week. So, despite what Fiverr says publicly, the success score counts all cancellations. Success score is complete BS, and solely designed to stress out users by demoting them.

Edited February 24 by ahunyady

[palmreader37]

Well you don't have to be a psychic to know nothing is for granted with Fiverr. It can all come crashing down tomorrow 

[visualstudios]

2 minutes ago, palmreader37 said:

Well you don't have to be a psychic to know nothing is for granted with Fiverr. It can all come crashing down tomorrow 

But you do have to be one to know if it will crash tomorrow or not. So, will it? We need to know!

Edited February 24 by visualstudios

[melanielm]

15 minutes ago, williambryan392 said:

You are an OG! Fiverr started in Feb 2010, what month did you join?

December 2010.

My gig with the 'severe negative impact' for cancellations that were from fake buyers (and covered by CS) and shouldn't have affected my rating (clearly stated on the order page) dropped one of my gig's scores a point this morning. I hope they're still actually working on this serious issue.

[lukesdesigns]

Chiming in here to say I have also now encoutered the random one level drop after a couple anxiety driven weeks of hard work. The new system is terrifying. Fiverr might see an uptick in performance for a few weeks here as people scramble to improve their scores but this is going to cause huge mental stress and burnout in the near future.

[virgoca]

welp, today I woke up to one of my gig being at 7/10 and negative client satisfaction. this same gig was going well and had a POSITIVE client satisfaction message showing until today. I can't even pinpoint when or which order caused this since this is my least active gig, and I just got the first order in it in a while last night (and haven't even delivered it yet. The order literally went active hours ago and it's due in two weeks). Wonder what magic is the AI is using to determine this 🙂

[virgoca]

6 minutes ago, lukesdesigns said:

Chiming in here to say I have also now encoutered the random one level drop after a couple anxiety driven weeks of hard work. The new system is terrifying. Fiverr might see an uptick in performance for a few weeks here as people scramble to improve their scores but this is going to cause huge mental stress and burnout in the near future.

I have been working like a madman for over a week straight, and I've never had bigger bags under my eyes. I'm stressing over delivering way earlier than usual to make sure the "client satisfaction" and "value for money" metrics are met. I think I can count the times I've left my home office with one hand in the past week, mostly to take bathroom breaks or to feed my dog 🙂 

[chaosmagic]

Same here. I worked hard for two weeks, and all good, but I dropped one point. 

[budaart]

Also dropped one point. Maybe they are testing a new algorithm that affects everyone?

[lukesdesigns]

All of this is happening while new Sellers like this: https://www.fiverr.com/team_scorpions1 are displaying AI generated and fake images with no reviews or past orders and receiving PRO status.

What on Earth is going on?

[virgoca]

Just now, lukesdesigns said:

All of this is happening while new Sellers like this: https://www.fiverr.com/team_scorpions1 are displaying AI generated and fake images with no reviews or past orders and receiving PRO status.

What on Earth is going on?

here's the thing. We freelancers, specially artists, have a very reserved opinion on AI. Some of us are straight up against it. However, fiverr is promoting it and encouraging it. If you check the Top Rated Seller priority list for evaluation, you'll find AI Programmers and AI artists have a significantly higher priority for evaluation and promotion than anyone else. Fiverr is awarding the use of AI to do our work, and punishing everyone else 

[lukesdesigns]

1 minute ago, virgoca said:

here's the thing. We freelancers, specially artists, have a very reserved opinion on AI. Some of us are straight up against it. However, fiverr is promoting it and encouraging it. If you check the Top Rated Seller priority list for evaluation, you'll find AI Programmers and AI artists have a significantly higher priority for evaluation and promotion than anyone else. Fiverr is awarding the use of AI to do our work, and punishing everyone else 

Yeah for sure. I'd say it's manipulative and they're taking advantage of us but their share price is down 45% in the past 1-year so in reality no one is winning except for a handful of fake designers selling AI made designs.

[huntertreat14]

I was emailing back and forth with support and had them explain the new leveling system to me. When I emailed them back and said:

"So essentially the Fiverr Score is a curved grade?"   (because of basing YOUR score off of OTHER PEOPLES.)

The reply I got this morning was from Jean at Customer Support, here is what she had to say.

"Hi,
Jean here this time.
That would be correct, might not be the literal meaning of that but something of that is the case with the new leveling system. 
If you need anything else let me know."

Im a little shocked that they flat out say "yes its a curved grade". If you are familiar with Schools grading on a curve, its a truly terrible scope.

[visualstudios]

Just wow. I'm absolutely tired of this platform. This is ridiculous, people do not understand the rating system. The boxes make absolutely no sense, they clearly wanted to say the opposite.  Everything went perfectly with this order. People assume very good is a good review, they don't get the emoji c**p.

4 stars on communication level can't be correct, for example, it goes against what the review itself says. "Communication was excellent". 4 stars on communication. How could I get 5, then? Do I have to be "better than excellent"?

 

 

Edited February 24 by visualstudios

[johnparsons01]

I received notification that yes - there is something of a bell curve at play here.  Also noticed that my score dropped another point overnight. Anyone else?

[huntertreat14]

1 minute ago, johnparsons01 said:

I received notification that yes - there is something of a bell curve at play here.  Also noticed that my score dropped another point overnight. Anyone else?

Yeah my score dropped overnight after completing a 5 star order 2 days early.

Edited February 24 by huntertreat14

[leonormiserol]

4 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

Just wow. I'm absolutely tired of this platform. This is ridiculous, people do not understand the rating system. The boxes make absolutely no sense, they wanted to say the opposite.  Everything went perfectly with this order. People assume very good is a good review, they don't get the emoji c**p. 4 stars on communication level can't be correct, for example, it goes against what the review itself says. "Communication was excellent". 4 stars on communication. Alright, then.

 

 

That's right, the system is made to confuse the customer. That same thing happened to me 3 times and it is affecting my ratings, with clients leaving good reviews and tips.

[leonormiserol]

13 hours ago, vhskid said:

Among the recent big (and bad) changes, we have a full look only at the new reviews system. 

Given that we don't have to speculate and guess about this, I went ahead, broke it into pieces, and assembled it again in the form of a UX audit and redesign.

 

 

I wrote a separate post, so it won't get lost between the memes:

[ UX audit + redesign ] New Rating & Review System

 

Ideally, we'll have separate threads for every gig rating metric, because these subjects are just too big to discuss them all at once.

This has to end up in the hands of someone competent on fiverr.

[lukesdesigns]

5 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

Just wow. I'm absolutely tired of this platform. This is ridiculous, people do not understand the rating system. The boxes make absolutely no sense, they wanted to say the opposite.  Everything went perfectly with this order. People assume very good is a good review, they don't get the emoji c**p. 4 stars on communication level can't be correct, for example, it goes against what the review itself says. "Communication was excellent". 4 stars on communication. Alright, then.

 

 

This is absolutely ridiculous. I'm honestly pretty shattered at seeing just how bad this update has been from Fiverr. It's true that people have always sooked about changes... but this one has been absolutely horrendous.

[huntertreat14]

Just now, lukesdesigns said:

This is absolutely ridiculous. I'm honestly pretty shattered at seeing just how bad this update has been from Fiverr. It's true that people have always sooked about changes... but this one has been absolutely horrendous.

Exactly. Its the fact that we are supposed to be a team with fiverr, as long as we work together, everyone gets dividends. 
Now they are basically throwing their workers in the toilet.

[leonormiserol]

Something strong is coming!

[emmaki]

5 minutes ago, lukesdesigns said:

All of this is happening while new Sellers like this: [REDACTED] are displaying AI generated and fake images with no reviews or past orders and receiving PRO status.

What on Earth is going on?

Fiverr's AI policy doesn't force sellers to disclose their use of AI. Fiverr also made a whole bunch of people Pro based on (probably) AI signals in August/September. when it suddenly needed to fill out a new Pro marketplace. The badge doesn't mean "top 1% of freelancers" like it did when it was launched.
 

19 minutes ago, virgoca said:

AI Programmers and AI artists have a significantly higher priority for evaluation and promotion than anyone else

That's not quite true, the blurb just says the 

Quote

We are currently focusing on high-demand categories in need of more Top Rated freelancers. Jump to our list of categories and estimated frames for a decision. 

and it only applies to people in Seller Plus. There are plenty of other non-AI cats in the list. 

Fiverr's internal evaluation criteria is another question, considering Mr Uncustomized AI art with dodgy reviews made it to Pro. Looking at his gig that was reviewed 7 hours ago, he somehow has 2 more orders. After making 1 sale in the last 6 months and the rest of them a year ago, kickstarting his Fiverr career with a terrible review. AI isn't smart, and neither are sellers who try to game Fiverr's systems. 
 

[lukesdesigns]

Yeah I'm waiting for emmaki to save my weekend and my mental... 🙏