posted on September 20, 2000 10:46:30 AM
I've read about the NW being used by pranksters on here. Now I have been hit by "a" deadbeat with mulitple ID's NWing my auctions, for no reason at all, other than I canceled his bid, (he is a real loser).
It seems Yahoo now has changed the NW to include this little ditty. If you get TWO NW hits, REGARDLESS if they are warranted, or NOT. You can NOT relist that item. Sure, you can start it over, but you can't even copy and paste your HTML because you can't get to it. You have to start the item from the very beginning all over again, pictures and all!
I see now what is meant by the "Yahoobots". Yahoo has tried to automate the NW program so those NWed can not resubmit the items. They forget that the deadbeats on their site will use this to mess with the honest people. When I e-mailed them about this happening to me, I get the usual 'we don't care' canned response. Ever wonder why sometimes you get a canned response that has NOTHING to do with your problem? I believe they have key alert words now to generate the canned responses with. If you put in the wrong word, the computer sends you a canned response for that keyed word.
Customer Care is almost non-existent anymore. They couldn't care less if someone is trashing the file of an honest person. I guess all they care about is that the deadbeats read the ads and sign-up for some of their services? They let Yahoo be a playground for these mentally challenged individuals. I used to support Yahoo when they were being bashed, not anymore. I don't get support, I don't give any. This so called 'family community' does NOT exist.
posted on September 20, 2000 11:21:35 AM
Yahoo has always been a playground for misfits who want to cause damage but are too stupid to write a virus. Now with CC verification, some of the misfits, along with a lot of good customers will leave. A few weeks ago some folks in the seller zone were discussing some sellers with spam auctions. Since then, a number of those folks have had their auctions annonymously NWd. Just about every one of my auctions gets 3 NWs just as it is ending. Don't tell me this was done legitimately. If the goal is to prevent spam and someone really thought it was spam, they would have done it before. No, just as the auction is closing, and even with bids on it, someone comes and puts 3 NWs. This is a prankster and Yahoo has given him a new weapon to use. I think next Yahoo will allow folks to edit other sellers' auctions.
posted on September 20, 2000 12:15:34 PM
I've had somewhat the same thing happen. Not the NW part though. One bidder had icky feedback, so I cancelled her bid and blacklisted her. She came back with another ID, I cancelled and blacklisted. So, far she has come back with over 10 ID's. It's keeping me busy just keeping up with her. Argggh.....
posted on September 20, 2000 03:01:45 PM
Thanks Auctionee! I had run through everthing on Yahoo I could think of! Never thought of Neighborhood Watch though!
I must not understand how THAT works! I thought if your auction got reported over a certain number of times THEN it was individually looked at by Yahoo!. Is that NOT the case?
Where can I find the info on NW (see I CAN learn new tricks )-sulyn
posted on September 20, 2000 04:02:31 PM
"I thought if your auction got reported over a certain number of times THEN it was individually looked at by Yahoo!. Is that NOT the case?"
That is correct. When you get 3 reports you get an automatic warning, on the 4th it is sent to Customer Care to look at, and usually close. However, anything that has even 1 report is allowed to run until the end of the auction, but you cannot resubmit it using the resubmit button, you have to start over as a new listing.
posted on September 20, 2000 04:03:30 PM
sulyn1950,
It used to be that was the only way it worked. Three NW hits on your auction you would get an e-mail to you alerting you that you had a problem. Four NW hits, Customer Care would evaluate the NWs and may warn you, or totally delete all of your auctions in violation.
Now they have made a robotic change, to save them labor I guess. When you get NWed, you can't resub that auction anymore. You will get a message 'You can not resubmit an auction that has been neighborhood watched', or however it's worded. Like Yisgood said, a new toy for the pranksters, or a possible competitor trying to shut down the competition. Not a lot of thought was given by Yahoo! on this idea, like many.
posted on September 20, 2000 06:43:53 PM
amalgamated2000
I imagine it would. As an automatice relist goes through the same process. It stops, and restarts. Once it has ended a cycle, it won't be able to restart because of the NWs placed on it.
I feel Yahoo! may do something about this, eventually. But I hope they are not as slow as they normally are. I had to totally redo 48 of my auctions today from the beginning. I guess when it becomes a real epedemic, then they will wake up, and fix it.
posted on September 21, 2000 07:05:46 AM
You should never have to redo your auctions. Bring up your closed auction. Hit view-source. This will bring up a notepad window with the HTML code in it. Cut and paste the auction text into a new auction. Add the photo. It's a bigger pain than just hitting resubmit but it's easier than re-entering the whole thing.
posted on September 21, 2000 06:06:40 PM
Thanks Yisgood, you just taught me SOMETHING else I did not know!
[ edited by sulyn1950 on Sep 21, 2000 06:07 PM ]
posted on September 21, 2000 07:03:58 PM
I just had an auction that was set for auto relist close with 2 NW's. It appears to have relisted without a problem.
posted on September 21, 2000 07:24:19 PM
Also, a note on Yisgood's excellent tip -- if you use Netscape, the default viewer for viewing the source will not allow you to cut and paste.
You will need to configure your default source viewer to use Notepad. Unfortunately, I don't have Netscape on this computer, so I can't give more specific instructions at this point.
posted on September 21, 2000 08:16:44 PM
amalgamated2000
I guess I was wrong about the auto relist being impacted. Your is the first example we've heard of. But you may as well prepare now, save your text to restart it, when the resubs run out. Maybe you'll get lucky, and Yahoo will change this problem before the resubs expire. At least you are forewarned what may be coming. Good luck.
posted on September 21, 2000 10:25:43 PM
When NW first started months ago you could not relist an auction even with 1 complaint. This was back when Yahoo employees read and responded to issues posted at SZ. Many sellers complained they were being wrongly NW'd and Yahoo agreed to allow relists regardless of the # of complaints. I did not realize this had changed yet again.
I do think it's good because of sellers who were closing at the 3rd complaint to avoid review knowing they are in violation. I've seen them relist a few days later without changing the ads (especially those who list porn everywhere but Adult). Perhaps Yahoo's thinking is that if they have to re-do the ad entirely they will actually put it in Adult this time to avoid further NW problems.
I realize that doesn't help your situation and Yahoo still has many issues with pranksters that need to be resolved. They are trying many things lately (unfortunately most of them are the wrong things) to try and straighten out their site.
posted on September 22, 2000 09:17:09 AM
Yahoo finally replied to my dozen complaints about annonymous NWs. They sent me a canned email explaining what an NW is. I think after being the victim of at least 50, I already know this information. Thanks a lot Yahoo.
posted on September 23, 2000 01:16:43 AM
I just NW'd my own auction (signing in under my second ID), as both "belongs in a different category" and "adult outside the adult category". I then closed the auction each time and tried to relist to see if the NW complaint would prevent me from relisting the auction.
IT DIDN'T.
I was able to resubmit the auction BOTH times (even with the "adult" complaint).
I don't understand why all the people being NW'd are COMPLAINING. You aren't being PREVENTED from relisting your auctions, and the only way you even KNOW you're NW'd is if you LOOK by clicking "Neighborhood Watch" on each auction listing.
This is very discouraging to me. It means that pornographic listings outside the adult category and spam are NOT IMPACTED AT ALL when NW'd, unless the count gets to 4 (which very, very few do---there just aren't enough people bothering to NW offenders). And I've come across listings that have MORE THAN 4 complaints/reports, that are supposedly being handled by Yahoo Customer Care, that aren't being shut down days after being NW'd.
Reporting offenders to Yahoo Member Conduct (http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/abuse/cgi_abuse) hasn't done any good lately, either....I guess the person in charge of abuse is on vacation (or busy rewriting software code to implement new changes to the site).
posted on September 23, 2000 11:58:56 AM
"I just NW'd my own auction (signing in under my second ID), as both "belongs in a different category" and "adult outside the adult category". I then closed the auction each time and tried to relist to see if the NW complaint would prevent me from relisting the auction."
Try it again, but let your auctions run to the end instead of closing them and see what it does. I believe what you experienced may be because you actually closed the auctions which, under normal circumstances, would have given you the opportunity to change the auction to correct what it was NW'd for. Just a thought.
You would be complaining too, if you tried to relist an auction that was unjustly NWed, and you couldn't. And you had to do the whole auction over again. Do you think we are bringing it up because it doesn't happen? It HAS happened to many of us.
I agree entirely. The NW program is good for what it was intended to do, and I NW violations myself, in a JUSTIFIED manner. What we are talking about in this thread is pranksters, and possible competitors NWing auctions which are NOT in violation of any TOS. There is a BIG difference.
posted on September 23, 2000 09:32:29 PMauctionee,
The things you NW something for CAN'T be fixed by closing and resubmitting the auction---two of the NW reasons require NOT RELISTING AT ALL to correct the violation: "spam" and "terms of service violation"; and two require CHANGING THE CATEGORY, which means starting an ENTIRELY NEW AUCTION rather than resubmitting: "think it belongs in a different category" and "adult item outside the adult area".
When I was allowed to relist my first NW'd auction last night, I thought it might be because it was a "lesser" violation---in the "wrong category" (though I was unable to relist one auction I had running several months ago that was NW'd for wrong category). So I tried the "adult" violation NW, and it made no difference---I still was able to resubmit the auction.
I suppose it's possible that SOME NW'd auctions are NOT being allowed to relist and others ARE, through some glitch in the system. Or they wrote the code so that ONLY NW'd auctions closing on their own can't be resubmitted. I don't know, since I don't have any auctions closing again until tomorrow night.
posted on September 24, 2000 05:52:38 AM
"The things you NW something for CAN'T be fixed by closing and resubmitting the auction---two of the NW reasons require NOT RELISTING AT ALL to correct the violation: "spam" and "terms of service violation"; and two require CHANGING THE CATEGORY, which means starting an ENTIRELY NEW AUCTION rather than resubmitting: "think it belongs in a different category" and "adult item outside the adult area"."
I understand what you are saying granee, I was just trying to think like a yahoobot.
)-sulyn
