I'm not happy, I hate the rate system.

KingDog said
The current system is just a temporary measure while we get something better on the books.

Honestly, that’s obviously not true. The current rating system isn’t temporary. It hasn’t changed in the three years I’ve been an author. Ratings today are a permanent and neglected implementation of a poorly designed system.

Envato needs to do one of two things: (1) ship code (2) Say: “No, we’re not doing this anytime soon.” The “empty promises” culture is patronizing at best.

crossroad said

SakuraPixel said
of course u’re not happy, lets not forget that other authors buy/rate your file, if it threatens their popular week file, we have received a 1 star within first 3 days after publish without any complains or any comments, yes i’m 99.9% sure who did it. jayc

...or you’re just being negative and just assuming this?

Yes, your right, I’m assuming (99.9), there is no way I could state this for sure. It’s a mathematical extrapolation based on what we have sold until now.

jayc

Anps said
We actually got a direct threat if do not help him with adding some additional stuff, this person stated that our rate and comments will directly depend on this issue lol

This isn’t uncommon. Some buyers use it as leverage for re-design or customization. I’ve noticed it occurs mostly with buyers who are developers or designers for a particular company. They contract a design from their client, purchase a theme, use the theme author to provide any additional customization or alteration or “fix”, and either directly or indirectly threaten the theme author with poor ratings or reviews. It’s a racket. The only way to handle it is with kindness and professionalism. Always be professional and always be polite, even with the most egregiously rude buyer.

GravityDept said

KingDog said
The current system is just a temporary measure while we get something better on the books.

Honestly, that’s obviously not true. The current rating system isn’t temporary. It hasn’t changed in the three years I’ve been an author. Ratings today are a permanent and neglected implementation of a poorly designed system.

Envato needs to do one of two things: (1) ship code (2) Say: “No, we’re not doing this anytime soon.” The “empty promises” culture is patronizing at best.

I agree with this. I say either fix it or remove it.

Maybe we should do a petition for removing the rating feature until fixed?

Jaynesh said
Maybe we should do a petition for removing the rating feature until fixed?

It’s not perfect but still better than nothing (that’d really make authors unaccountable) and I don’t see it as putting anyone at a disadvantage in relation to competing authors—we’re all under the same system. By the time a few ratings are made, the average does say something. It’s good for buyers to be able to differentiate between 3 and 5 star items.

Just needs some improving.

KingDog said
I agree. We need an overall better ratings system. The current system is just a temporary measure while we get something better on the books. Thanks for patience with this. I know it sucks to suffer through the limitations of the current system.

“Temporary” for more than 4-5 years? One way actually you speak about truth. Most of the interface, communication features were made as a temporary measure when the marketplaces created. But later, none of those temporary implementations improved to match real usage cases; may be because the problems are not affecting Envato’s side but only authors and buyers.

Personally I can see reason for these consciously ignored features in 2 ways:

1. It helps Envato to indirectly make authors to obey buyers – regardless of fairness of buyer support requests. So the more fear the authors have about buyers and commits free work, it adds more credibility/competitive power for Envato among buyers. In case this is the reason for the current vague rating system, I would call this as rude and cheap – more of an industry hack.

2. Envato has mind to improve these things but since they always tend to spend their development resources (including every brain cells of top level staff) only on new business, they can’t even think about very basic improvements.

Being successful but without efficiency – is a shame in the dictionary of professionalism.

VF said
Personally I can see reason for these consciously ignored features in 2 ways:

mixey said

wiseguys said
1) mandatory feedback for a bad rating

2) showing exactly how many of each rating the item has (3 1-star ratings, 500 5-star ratings etc.)

But when?

- Chris

It’s in the pipeline.

How do you know? We’ve been asking for this for years and no luck

VF said

KingDog said
I agree. We need an overall better ratings system. The current system is just a temporary measure while we get something better on the books. Thanks for patience with this. I know it sucks to suffer through the limitations of the current system.

“Temporary” for more than 4-5 years? One way actually you speak about truth. Most of the interface, communication features were made as a temporary measure when the marketplaces created. But later, none of those temporary implementations improved to match real usage cases; may be because the problems are not affecting Envato’s side but only authors and buyers.

Personally I can see reason for these consciously ignored features in 2 ways:

1. It helps Envato to indirectly make authors to obey buyers – regardless of fairness of buyer support requests. So the more fear the authors have about buyers and commits free work, it adds more credibility/competitive power for Envato among buyers. In case this is the reason for the current vague rating system, I would call this as rude and cheap – more of an industry hack.

2. Envato has mind to improve these things but since they always tend to spend their development resources (including every brain cells of top level staff) only on new business, they can’t even think about very basic improvements.

Being successful but without efficiency – is a shame in the dictionary of professionalism.

I love the way you think Because I think in a similar way However, I’m not sure about the rating system thingie. Maybe a transparent rating system would actually increase sales, and Envato would benefit from it.

For example a buyer would think twice before buying a 3-star item, but if they saw that in fact the item has mostly 5 stars, and maybe a few 4 stars, and only a single 1-star rating that screws up the overall rating, he’d most probably have no worries about buying that file. He’d realize that the one 1-star rating is from some @#$% buyer since all other ratings are 5 and 4.

I guess we’ll never know :))))))) Unless of course they’re gonna give us that new rating system?

- Chris

Hi folks, the rating system needs work, completely agreed. I’ve been listening, we will improve it. The more interesting question is “when?”. I’d love to give you an exact date, but I’ll only do that when I can be certain.

What I can tell you is that we’re really close to wrapping up some current projects, and ratings is sitting right at the top of the work to dig into next. A huge part of this will be re-reading the mountain of feedback we’ve already collected and community consultation on the changes we’ll be making. I’ll let the community know when this starts.