Shared thoughts

Missing quotables? Well, we ran across a new blog that you are going to love! or hate...depends on what you focus on.

Quotes from Etsy's Pissed Off Sellers

Since the forums were transitioned, the venom and loathing is competing with the bullshit for depth.

You'll notice a lack of attribution - at first that disturbed me, after all you should give someone credit where credit's due...but they offer an explanation - so you decide if you're ok with it or not

Truth fucking hurts.

So, you can really pay to play in popular Treasuries..

So..

http://www.etsytuesday.com/

Yeah..

We can pay to make the front page? Remember when cuppy cakes were outraged at the accusation? Mmm-hmmm..

Now, they're in talks with Admin to make sure its not against TOS to do what they're doing.. Whatevs. How fucking shady.

Etsy, Privacy and You

First it was Activity Feed and Circles, now it’s the spanking new Etsy Email Importer due to launch in 2 weeks that encourages sellers to upload their email address books to Etsy to "let users find people more easily" because:

sean11:...it's hard to find people you know on Etsy, and we're going to change that. We're going to make it easy to connect your email address book to Etsy, so we can automatically find people you know who are also members.

In anticipation of this change sean11 announced, in the same breath, that Etsy CHANGED ITS PRIVACY POLICY to grease the wheels for this new “tool”:

http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6762010

Sellers’ reactions are running hot and heavy in this thread:

http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6762009

On top of it all, Etsy has made the tool OPT OUT instead of OPT IN!

Read it all because it gets curiouser and curiouser!

Once a seller loads their email address book into their Etsy profile Etsy will:

New Privacy Policy: When you add contacts to your Etsy circle, they will automatically receive an email notification. When you invite contacts to join Etsy, you may preview the email invitation before Etsy generates and sends it.

The questions and alarms are flying in forum comments, but this is clearly a very elaborate extension of Real Names, Activity Feed and Circles in the name of switching Etsy to a “social site” rather than a shopping, selling and buying site.

And while clever changes in Etsy’s Privacy Policy may give Etsy all the justification they seem to think they need to reduce the level of their members’ actual privacy, the real question is:

JUST WHAT IS ETSY GOING TO DO WITH THE INFORMATION YOU SHARE WITH THEM? JUST WHAT IS ETSY GOING TO DO WITH YOUR REAL NAME, EMAIL ADDRESS AND YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS BOOK?

.. and Goodbye Alchemy!!!

And this is only the beginning of a whole list of important questions that sellers have been asking for the past week ---- what the hell is going on at Etsy?

Etsy’s Forums - The Great Migration

Since Etsy Admin started tinkering with the Forum Topics section by sequestering CPSIA into their antiquated and problem-laden “team” format, Rob White dropped another Friday-afternoon bombshell with the done-deal Announcement that lists the next wave of Forum-to-team "migrations".

The main sticking points with many sellers are showing up several Forum posts, and many are asking about Etsy’s real intentions with these dramatic changes — are they dealing with a “size problem” or a “monitoring the forums problem” or just making the Forum Topics more exclusive by moving them behind their team format which requires not only membership, but more work for sellers who join them?!

In addition, many sellers are asking, is this “team format” actually more exclusive than inclusive?

And who exactly made the decision to change the Forums? Sellers? Good question!

RW: ...Community fragmentation was my sticking point as we talked this out internally; I knew it bothered you, and it bothered me too. There had to be some other way, some better way to keep and augment what we have now. As Etsy continues to grow, however, the community is outgrowing this monolithic group of topics. Just as it is our job to be your advocates and represent your views, it is also our job to work out what can best support the Etsy community as it sprawls into hundreds and thousands of different interests and reasons to gather. What we have announced was the ultimate result of these deliberations...

In addition to Etsy’s irritating claim that it “advocates and represents your views” what about the consequences of these changes?

If Etsy is morphing into a FB-clonelike social shopping site where one assumes that people openly socialize, communicate and shop, what’s the deal with isolating and sequestering Forum Topics behind membership-required team formats?

Or is it just another manifestation of Etsy’s own history of imposing exclusivity on everything it does? From exclusive repeats of favorite sellers and favorite products on the front page and in all Etsy promos, is changing the Forums to teams just another way of excluding more sellers who don't fit the Etsy-defined clique based on the predictable confines of “Etsy faves”?

With increasing frequency, Etsy keeps imposing unannounced changes to format, site design, internal search tools, and even their own humungous TOU's to fit a short and long term mission that has changed so drastically most sellers don't know what Etsy is anymore. One can only imagine what shoppers think!

Has Etsy's own infatuation with itself finally obscured and obliterated the real and continuing needs of the actual source of their huge profits (sellers who list and sell)? We all know the history of that question......sellers are the LAST ONES TO KNOW!

As usual, it's the weekend and Etsy Admins could take days and weeks to catch up to the comments being made by sellers today (if they ever read them) about changes to the Forums that they did not ask for, did not expect, and do not agree with---for many good and legitimate reasons.

It's another test for Etsy --- will they change their plan based on seller outcry or will they revert to their longstanding habit of ignoring the very people who make them so much money?

Etsy Fucked Up Again

They ignored the outrage over "you got bad touched" cards - and just let it stay on site even defending it behind the first amendment.

But the detractors did not go and crawl off, and outrage grew, and it has now made national press. This was on Headline News - I would have loved to see Rob's face when he heard about this:



Etsy, have you learned yet that ignoring your users is BAD for you? That doing what you want is not doing what is right? Just because it's not offensive to you, doesn't mean it's not offensive. You are all old enough in Brooklyn to understand "damage control" and that you can't ignore things of they snowball on you. This is one fucking huge snowball. I only hope it take a couple of you hipster assholes out with it as it rolls by.

No, We've Not Abandoned You..

We've got things called jobs, family, and we even celebrate the Holidays. Stay tuned while we get shit together for the new year.

Holiday Sales Anyone?

Let's hear about your Etsy sales (or lack of sales) for Holidays 2010!

If you're leaving Etsy for another site, let us know why and where you've gone.

Now fucking around on Facebook

We finally set up a facebook fan page, please mozie your asses over and like us or fan us or whatever so we can get a fucking awesome url set.

While visions of Circles dance in their heads.......sales, what sales?

Here it is folks, smack dab in the middle of holiday retail frenzy, and Etsy decides it’s not about selling, it’s about Circles!

http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6702550

While visions of anything but selling continues to put Etsy Admins in a lather, let’s just say it’s the epitome of arrogance to take it all “social” without a care in the world about Etsy sellers selling for the holidays!

As fewer sellers sell because they never turn up in a woefully broken Search and customers can’t find what they might want to buy because Search don’t work no matter what, Etsy just keeps Circling down the drain of doing a lot of anything but focusing on Etsy sellers actually selling!