Documenting thoughts on features and workflow

[arpit-saxena]

Adding features I'd like to implement just to make sure there's a clear road map to go down on. Will keep adding to it as stuff comes to my mind.

Workflow

• Person comes to site
• Log in & stuff
• Functionality common to logged in and non logged in people
  • View products on sale
  • View people and their reviews
• Logged in exclusive
  • Buying could either be:
    • Contacting the seller, paying money however and they both mark transaction done on website. After product is sold, who marks product sold?
    • Buy now leads to a payment gateway (almost impossible to implement rn). Would be easier for buyer, but doesn't really fit in a small community like a campus
  • Product once sold is removed from currently available products page
• For Selling, user adds their product info on an add_product page. Info would include name, description, pictures and price (might be negotiable)
  • Since our system needs to store previous transactions info, what price does a negotiable item go as? The system could be manipulated if we base karma / rep. points on this.
• Adding a product submits a ticket which could be reviewed by any of the moderators. On approval, products are shown on the front page.
  • What if it is a perishable item and we want it to quickly sell (Ticket approval could take very long)?
    • Possibly make another section for currently selling, unmoderated items.
    • A buyer could select if he wants to see unmoderated items too. This would enable stuff to quickly sell, while also maintaining a level of decency among products.
  • What's the incentive for a moderator to quickly review items?
  • Maybe make a peer review system for moderators, and give them brownie points for how quick they reviewed a ticket. But why would I want brownie points on a rando site? (Well, look at Reddit. But that's different)
  • Monetary Benefits????
  • A group of ultra moderators (:p) could review the moderators performance.
  • What if a person wants to only sell to some specific group of people, say, in his hostel? (Not needed too much tho)
  • User should be notified if their product was approved or denied. If denied, they should be able to challenge it.
  • Who should review the challenge? Ultra mods could, and their word is final
  • Possible abuse. What if every denial gets challenged?
    • User's karma gets considered and if below a certain limit, they can't challenge.
• Should a user with karma beyond a certain limit be allowed to bypass ticketing?

[arpit-saxena]

Karma points

• Decided to call it karma as it really fits, doesn't it? You do good job by adding good products, the system behaves nicely to you. Spam, and you'll be trerated harshly.
• How should karma points be awarded?
  • Definitely not for the price of stuff sold. Doesn't make sense. Easy to con the sytem
  • For number of products sold???
  • A buyer and seller directly rate the buyer on how did their transaction went. Average rating is visible on the user's profile
  • This can be a huge problem in a closely knit community. Average rating changes will indicate the user what rating they got in their previous transaction.
  • People will definitely try to manipulate their rating by fake sells.
• Maybe karma ponits are an internal evaluation system, and only visible to the mods (maybe only ultra mods) and the public system could be the average rating.