|
re: Followup 2: intl mooch ratio change
You are correct, someone wanting to scam BM could do this. However, I have to strike a balance between preventing potential scams and mistakenly preventing honest people from doing things that are quite reasonable. Ah . . . so NOW we are getting closer to the reasoning behind this ratio change. It is to try to reduce the international scammers, and those of us who mooch internationally on a regular basis are the ones who will be ‘paying’ for this new security measure by means of our mooch ratio. John, in a previous thread you stated:
I've received many emails from people who have noticed that certain users have hugely imbalanced mooch/give numbers. Often, they would be mooching hugely more books than they were giving. They'd be mooching and giving internationally, but with the old ratio system, you could give as few as 20 books internationally, and receive 120 books internationally (2:1 ratio at a 3x bonus point). Well you can't do that now of course, but you CAN still give as few as 20 books internationally, and receive 120 books domestically (2:1 ratio at a 3x bonus point). So the imbalance is still there, the inconsistency is still there . . . only now the only people who can take advantage of it are those in countries with a large member base and a very large volume of books, so that they have no trouble finding what they want domestically. In other words, the good ol' US of A!! In your original post on this thread you stated:
That didn't seem right, so I added the concept of a "mooch ratio" so that BookMooch is mostly about #1 above (you send a book, you get a book), with an incentive to add books to your inventory, but a limit of "2 books received for 1 sent" no matter what you do to earn points. So now it works for some and not for others. Once again members in non US countries are disadvantaged. And again: So, the current ratio seems like it will work well in preventing actual abuse we see but allowing enough leeway so that honest people can go about doing what they do. The 'honest' people in the US can go on mooching six domestically for one sent internationally, whereas the rest of us who are forced to mooch internationally have obviously been bordering on abusing the system and must be curbed! Frankly John, as well as being grossly inequitable, I find this insulting. And don't tell me I can also mooch six books domestically for every one sent internationally, because I can't. They are just not available. If you do not understand this, you understand nothing about your own site.
|
