Member Ratings

Freegle Direct has a feedback system where members can rate each other.

When a transaction is completed (an item taken, received or withdrawn), members can rate each other with a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" in the chat for that item. All ratings are anonymous.

Each member can rate another member once. This stops someone building a good "reputation" by creating two accounts and giving themselves multiple thumbs up - with a one-rating-per-pair limit, you'd need many accounts to game it, which is far more hassle. It also stops someone annoyed about something sitting there clicking thumbs down repeatedly.

If a member clicks the wrong thumb by mistake, they can correct it by clicking again, which cancels the rating.

If the transaction was a simple "yes please, can I have it" message with no real chat, the rating can still be given but won't be shown to others. If there's been a two-way chat, the rating is shown. This stops people leaving a bad rating simply because they didn't get an item.

Since February 2022, anyone giving a "thumbs down" must also give a reason. Other members can't see this reason, but volunteers can.

Ratings last around six months, then fade away. Across the whole system, members give 89% thumbs up and 11% thumbs down on average.

A thumbs-down doesn't block further interaction with that member - there's a separate Block button for that.

TrashNothing has a thumbs-up equivalent, but not a thumbs-down.

There's also a separate, system-generated feedback facility showing statistics about a member's usage. See Feedback for how this works and what it shows.

Members can see their own ratings and stats in Settings, under "View Your Profile".

Links:

• Feedback
• Sample Admin: Feedback system - an admin message you can use to tell your members about the system-generated facility
• Freegle Direct - more about Freegle Direct's facilities