eBay Community Mentor Dust-Up Reveals Rifts - Do NDAs & Special Treatment Hurt Trust In The Platform?
eBay community forum members have often questioned the secrecy and exclusivity of the eBay Mentors program, but a recent satirical post on the subject shines new light on the subject, highlighting a rift between mentor and non-mentors and raising questions about whether non-disclosure agreements and special perks ultimately hurt trust in the platform.
Here's what eBay officially says about the Mentor program for their community forum:
Community Mentors are a key part of what makes the eBay Community special. They are experienced eBay sellers and buyers, devoted to helping other users get the most out of eBay.
If you love helping others, know a lot about eBay, and are interested in volunteering your time answering questions on eBay Community, you could make a great Mentor.
Interested in the Perks?
The pleasure of helping your fellow humans is worth a lot, but so are these Mentor-exclusive benefits:
- Connect with your peers in the private Mentor’s Lounge
- Direct access to the eBay Community team, including video chats
- Opportunity to shape new Community features
- An exclusive Community profile badge
- Invitations to exclusive events and opportunities
Are you qualified?
Here are the boxes you need to check to become a Mentor:
- Active eBay buyer or seller
- Post frequently in the Community
- Positive Community participant for more than 6 months
- Willing to mentor others
- All Mentors must agree to follow both the Community and Mentor Guidelines
Mentors must fill out an application and be approved, and they're expected to follow the community and mentor guidelines - none of which ever explicitly mention anything about signing a non-disclosure agreement.
However, a recent community post which started as a humorous satirical "apology" from an "unofficial mentor" has revealed more details about the NDA requirement and some ways in which the Mentors program might actually drive a wedge between users, ultimately hurting trust in the eBay platform as a whole.
My sincerest apologies
Seems like calling myself an unofficial mentor has ruffled quite a few feathers around here. For that, if I bruised any egos, I do apologize. Yes, I realize that the definition of “mentor“ would fit most of the regulars on here – maybe all of them.
But, understood that there is a certain status that some feel comes from that word. I really didn’t want to step on any toes. The last thing that I would want to do is disrupt anyone’s feelings of self-importance.
if I disappear from these boards, it is because me calling myself an unofficial mentor became too much for some people. Yikes.
In response, several current and ex-Mentors shared their thoughts about the experience, including the recent requirement to sign an NDA.
I’m a former “mentor.” A few weeks back, eBay asked us to sign NDAs. They warned if we did not, we would lose our “special status” as mentors. Those are the words eBay used.
Yes, I rolled my eyes too. lol I was totally over it at that point. I did not want to sign the NDA, but was persuaded to by my wife. So, I signed… then pretty soon after, opted out of the program.
I read some of the NDA - no way I was going to sign. Why would I want to be obligated to be less than honest and forthcoming with people? Why would I want to be told what lines to use and what company line to tow?
and, hey, you are a “mentor.” Mentors don’t do it for the title or for sneak peeks. They genuinely want to help people, and don’t do it for reward...
...It was a heavy lean towards not becoming an official mentor – the NDA sealed the deal.
No way I would ever sign a CDA without there being some great benefit for me. Certainly wouldn’t want to sign one that had no opportunity for negotiation.
And, I don’t know who is crazy enough to sign up when the governing jurisdiction is California. Plenty of downside risk to signing that NDA, and the reward is that I get an official mentor badge? And an early read to policy changes? No thanks.
A current mentor explained that the NDAs are there because those in the program often get advanced notice of new features and policy changes, so they can be prepared to help answer any questions in the community that might come up once those changes are announced publicly.
We have access to the Ask a Mentor board. Buyers and Sellers ask questions there, eBay Mentors respond and the threads are typically very short ... member issues that are on the account level we direct them to eBay. Most questions are straight forward and easy to answer but some are not.
We have foreknowledge of certain changes coming down the road for the purpose of answering the questions that ultimately result from the introduction of a new feature or the roll out of a site wide change. That is where the NDA comes into play.
That kind of advanced knowledge and exclusive access has been a major source of tension between mentor and non-mentor community members over the years, but the practice raises issues far beyond niche internet community concerns.
One serious problem with the Mentor program is it allows eBay to hide behind "unofficial" sources, foisting much of the heavy lifting on customer support in the community onto volunteers while also using them as a shield to avoid taking heat for unpopular changes or accountability for communication (or lack thereof) about business impacting issues.
For example, last month when a technical issue caused some sellers to be incorrectly charged insertion fees for editing listings, it was community Mentors who were left to provide an explanation after one of the official eBay employees in the community abandoned the discussion.
Liz Morton
To make matters worse in that example, when the issue was first reported, an official eBay employ did answer, saying that there were no open trouble tickets and agreeing with other posters that it was likely only a "display issue" and that sellers were not actually being charged the fees.
Days later, when multiple sellers had confirmed they were in fact being charged the fees, several Mentors posted to that thread with messages containing an official trouble ticket number and advising that the list of ongoing tech issues posted in the community would be updated later that day but Devon did not come back to the thread, even when tagged to confirm that information.
While I appreciated the mentors answering my question, I simply do not believe that's good enough - especially in a situation where sellers may have actually been incorrectly charged for fees, eBay should have a responsibility to handle notification and resolution of that issue transparently and directly with sellers, not hide behind volunteer Mentors in a community forum which the vast majority of the seller-base doesn't even participate.
In response, a different Mentor passed on a "clarification" from Devon - ironically proving my point about eBay's reliance on volunteers to do their job for them.
After additional pushback, Devon did eventually return to the thread to confirm that information.
To be clear my criticism is not of the Mentors themselves - it's of the fact that eBay continues to use them as a way to avoid accountability and claim the forum isn't an official support channel when it suits their purposes to do so.
It's just the latest example of how eBay's publicly touted desire for more "seller engagement" (like at job posting hinting at using community created content as part of eBay's AI Defensibility strategy or the seller-led meetup groups recently rebrand Seller Circles) gets mired in corporate bureaucracy, heavy handed moderation (usually meted out by eBay's third party forum provider, Khoros) and an official presence that is often missing in action.
The eBay US community forum has gone through several moderation crackdowns over the years, though for the most part it seems the strategy there has been more one of disengagement and significantly reducing official participation, like the discontinuation of regularly scheduled chat events with eBay staff.
Liz Morton
And I've personally experienced how arbitrary and capricious eBay moderation and suspension decisions can be in 2022 when my account was "permanently" suspended after being deemed "a risk to the eBay community" - a decision eBay themselves eventually admitted was only overturned due to my "social presence".
Liz Morton
Sellers have also raised concerns about eBay requiring NDAs for other special programs or opportunities to speak directly with higher level executives, putting them in the difficult position of having to sacrifice the right to speak publicly about their experiences in order to have their feedback heard by decision-makers at the company.
Liz Morton
The censorship doesn't stop there - eBay UK users are increasingly finding the company's official community forums for their marketplace to be hostile territory as well with posts expressing concerns and opinions about private seller and buyer fee policy changes deleted and temporary or permanent bans being handed out for dubious reasons.
Beyond the posts which are being removed, the eBay UK community forum also appears to have pre-emptively blacklisted a wide swath of keywords which the Khoros programming will block from ever even being posted.
For example, it is forbidden to post the name of eBay's ex-CEO Devin Wenig - and any attempts to do so are met with a message saying that "is not permitted in this community" - though oddly enough, it does allow current CEO Jamie Iannone.
Ironically, that bit of censorship is likely an effort to prevent users from discussing Wenig's connection to the eBay cyberstalking scandal which was the catalyst for his departure from the company.
The bizarre corporate plot unfolded in the summer of 2019, targeting Ina and David Steiner for their reporting on eBay at EcommerceBytes and seeking to unmask the identity of unsuckEBAY (also known as FidoMaster/Dan Davis) an anonymous commenter and source who sparked the ire of top executives at the company, including Wenig, Chief Communications Officer Steve Wymer, and SVP Global Operations Wendy Jones.
Court records revealed sordid details of the harassment that included disturbing deliveries of live insects, bloody pig masks and funeral wreaths as well as threatening messages, doxxing that ultimately escalated to in-person stalking and an attempted break-in at the hands of high-level eBay security personnel all in an effort to curtail free speech and commentary which "vexed" the executives.
Even more ironically, unsuckEBAY undertook his very public social experiment in free speech and corporate accountability to Twitter explicitly because he (rightly) surmised that eBay's owned forums were a "walled garden" designed to act as a pressure valve for seller complaints while limiting exposure to important internal and external stakeholders, insulating decision-makers from the impacts of their policies, and preventing any real efforts to push for change from gaining traction.
Liz Morton
While the First Amendment of the US Constitution obviously doesn't apply any direct legal restrictions on eBay's moderation decisions in their community forums either in the US or elsewhere, the underlying principles valuing free speech have wide reaching implications and applications - or at the very least might offer eBay some wisdom on more productive ways to engage with their customer base.
What do you think of eBay's Mentors program and other "community engagement" efforts? Let us know in the comments below!
