@comics.n.more wrote:
Here we go!!! Did you read the original post? My whole point of this post is that genuine and reasonable buyers are able to leave anonymous, accurate and impartial feedback towards sellers who genuinely deserve it.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's interesting you bring this up, I posed a question on the seller's board recently asking if anyone thought the defect system was going to affect buyers and buyer behaviour, but got no replies... 
Here's what I want to ask you first...
Should buyers really be able to have a tremendously adverse affect on a seller's account anonymously and with absolutely no accountability?
That's largely the way it was under the old system, and personally I vote an emphatic no.
I would have aboslutely no problem whatsoever with DSRs remaining anonymous if eBay didn't use them to punish sellers, but they do use them in that way, and as far as I'm concerned that means there needs to be some accountability for buyers, not free license to leave whatever the heck they want for whatever reason they want and allow eBay to use it as though it's tangible evidence of bad seller behaviour etc.
If they were merely overviews / general reviews, keep them anonymous*, I wouldn't care, but when my capacity to sell on eBay is compromised because someone decides to rate a star at 3 rather the 4, not a word to me directly or via feedback of any problem, I would like the opportunity to prevent them from doing it again.
The flip side, however, is that I recognise buyers will become more conscious of the DSRs they leave, and possible consequences of causing a defect (and by consequences I'm more referring to seller reaction, including contacting buyers and/or blocking them), and I do believe that is going to have some kind of effect on buyer behaviour, and I don't really think it's for the better.
Personally, I think it would be a rare occurence for a seller to compromise the safety of a buyer over an eBay issue - not saying it hasn't ever happened (I don't know), or wouldn't ever happen, but I don't think it's going to be more likely due to the defect system.
*Fact of the matter is, DSRs were never truly anonymous, it was a convoluted process of running several reports to determine who left a low rating, so a seller had to be committed to finding out, but it has always been possible.
