Support rating

Hey guys, i know this subject was discussed before, but i was thinking about something that would be much better for buyers & authors.

First of all i was thinking about the comments to be hidden for non-buyers. All the comments (thread) should have a rating system given by the official poster (buyer). Then the rating data should be gathered and calculated as health bar, like: the support for this item is 80% healthy.

Advantages:

1) Just few potential buyers actually browse all the comments pages, most of them just look at the last comments and figure out. This is misleading because the latest 2-3 buyers might have strange or stupid questions, or they might be frustrated by something (it’s actually normal, not judging them). Meanwhile on the previous page perhaps there are only good positive feedback.

2) Nobody wants to give free support (most of you know what i’m talking about)

3) This will give a separate rating to the template’s quality (the actual current rating with the stars). It’s a pity that a good, well built theme has 3-4 stars because either the author is very busy or has personal problems etc.

If an item will have 5 stars but the support health bar is around 30%, guess what he’ll do? Based on what he’ll see in the theme & features, i bet he’ll buy it and will not be frustrated if a question of his will be answered 2 days later. That’s because he will expect this and take it as granted.

And another good, must-do for comments support is to add a search function, man this will rock!

I’m just expressing my opinion on what i think it would be better in the future. I personally take this as a full time job and why not make it a better place?

Thanks, Marius

PS: Question to one of the best developers here JeffreyWay, do you think such things would be achievable ? This of course if you think it would benefit.

Didn’t you post this exact thing like a week ago?

Hiding the comments is a bad thing.

I check the comments before buying something, to see what issues people are having with a file.

It also allows me to find and resolve problems (if any) through others asking first.

If I see no replies to the complaint comments – I can see the support is no good.

I dont see any advantage in letting people rate an author / item on a non mandatory thing like support.

All it does is pressure authors more into giving free support. This would only make sense if the prices would go up or there would be an option to “buy” support.

Especially for authors in that “awkward” spot between “doesnt earn enough to hire people to help with support” and “gets a boatload of supportrequests” this would be bad.

quickandeasy said
Hiding the comments is a bad thing.

I check the comments before buying something, to see what issues people are having with a file.

It also allows me to find and resolve problems (if any) through others asking first.

If I see no replies to the complaint comments – I can see the support is no good.

I agree with this. I always check the comments before buying an item, and I will usually read through at least two pages worth.

mordauk said

quickandeasy said
Hiding the comments is a bad thing.

I check the comments before buying something, to see what issues people are having with a file.

It also allows me to find and resolve problems (if any) through others asking first.

If I see no replies to the complaint comments – I can see the support is no good.

I agree with this. I always check the comments before buying an item, and I will usually read through at least two pages worth.

Yes, you are right i also do that. Perhaps it isn’t the best thing to hide the comments, although i’d wish that. On my forum i’ve hidden the posts so i guess that would be the best thing, right.

Thanks for your opinions!

squaredWeb said
I dont see any advantage in letting people rate an author / item on a non mandatory thing like support.

All it does is pressure authors more into giving free support. This would only make sense if the prices would go up or there would be an option to “buy” support.

Especially for authors in that “awkward” spot between “doesnt earn enough to hire people to help with support” and “gets a boatload of supportrequests” this would be bad.

No, that’s my point, there will be separate rating for support / item, not pressuring authors for support. At this moment you can get for a great item of yours, a 1 star because the user didn’t liked your support. So it wouldn’t be fair to have 2-3 stars for an template which is awesome, right?

Anyway, that’s just my opinion

Marius

LandonWilson said
Didn’t you post this exact thing like a week ago?

Yeh, noone replied.

From my point of view, this topic is not worth discussing and will most likely never happen. Unless you keep posting it until staff is forced to implement it so you stop

KarmaThemes said

LandonWilson said
Didn’t you post this exact thing like a week ago?

Yeh, noone replied.

@ hogash you could just have bumped your old thread, if noone replied the topic might not be as interesting, no need for duplicate threads. http://wwww.themeforest.com/forums/thread/support-rating/54571?page=1#497419 From my point of view, this topic is not worth discussing and will most likely never happen. Unless you keep posting it until staff is forced to implement it so you stop

:)) No need i’m not desperate i was just asking for opinions.

Posted that thread in the wrong section and reported to a moderator to close/delete and started another one. The edit button disappeared as i would’ve just switched the category, i know the rules no need to explain me

As far as if it worth discussing or not i think it does worth the discussion as long as the support system is not perfect and many things must be optimized.

I heard they are working on it, don’t confuse them with new ideas.