Opinions, Is this better for the Members?

I have come to rely on the old feedback system. Meaning I would not do business with a person who has a neutral or negative feedback. It seems to me that a person only gets negative or neutral feedback from not following through on a transaction. If you have a deal and you need to backout because of funds or your dog died that shouldn't automatically lead to negative feedback. If you string someone along on a buy or sell something that is less than advertised than there should be recourse. I for one would stop buying through this service if I get the feeling that I can no longer determine if the total stranger that I am sending my money to is trust worthy. To the good people at AGON what is the percentage of people with negative / neutral feedback to the total number of subscribers? If that number is low than the system is working. I can appreciate that you guys are working hard to keep AGON from becoming a like EBAY. Please don't ruin a great system. Would you consider letting the members vote on whether we would prefer the old versus new feedback system. Thanks for allowing me to share my thoughts.

Actually, I just had a case where the member backed out of selling an item and was very poor in communicating what the situation was. The deal, payment, and shipping details had already been agreed on. Once I had not received the item, and he had not received any payment, he was able to go by Gon's new rules, and get out of receiving any negative feedback. It almost seems like one would have to be monetarily taken advantage of before a negative feedback would possibly be able to be posted.

It doesn't matter one iota what we think!!

I agree w/comments that the old system is better. Once a committed buyer flaked out on me, and ultimately completed the purchase only after I threatened negative feedback. Now the carrot remains, but the stick is gone...Cheers,
Spencer

Seems to me the new system is aimed at reducing false positives and false negatives. Also, gives the parties a chance to work things out before a negative is posted. If I felt I'd been slimed by a seller, I'd rather have a chance to work things out -- posting a negative is less satisfying than getting a seller to comply. The negative becomes a tool rather than simply a complaint. I didn't think you could leave a negative feedback for someone who agrees to a deal and then backs out. I've never done that. I find that fairly common when I sell gear here. It is usually just a temporary set-back and I would rather not try to force someone to buy if they are trying to get out of the deal. I also think it is prudent to make sure there was an actual transaction before letting someone have a positive feedback. A dealer could simply get his entire staff to join Audiogon and post positive feedbacks -- and I suspect this has been done before.