Introducing BlockStamp’s 2-Level Moderation Policy for OpenBazaar
One of those ways is that we are now a OpenBazaar Verified Moderator.
We’ve done this for two reasons:
- We’ll help some OpenBazaar users make safer, fairer purchases. You’re welcome to choose us a moderator!
- We want to contribute to the set of best practices surrounding OpenBazaar moderation. We hope that other moderators will borrow and improve on our policies. When users have more (and better) moderation options here, everybody wins.
This article is about the moderation policies we’ve developed.
The basic idea: 2 levels of arbitration — 1 with minimal (or zero) fees and 1 with higher fees.
Ideally, we hope that OpenBazaar buyers and sellers can work out potential disputes without actually involving us as a moderator.
If you have a straightforward case that can be settled quickly, you will have minimal — or maybe zero — costs.
When you need us to get more involved, it will cost you something — at least to kick off the arbitration process. But if
- we know you and
- you’re acting honestly
then it will cost you relatively to sell on OpenBazaar with peace of mind.
So let’s get into the specifics.
Level 1 Arbitration
Let’s say that you made a moderated deal with someone on OpenBazaar.
That means your funds went into escrow.
If the deal proceeds as planned and everyone is happy, you and your counterparty simply agree to distribute the funds from escrow and it won’t cost you anything.
If something doesn’t quite go right, i.e. the products arrive but the quantity isn’t correct, you can raise it with us and we’ll mediate a fair solution.
The only cost will be 5% of the amount in escrow.
Level 2 Arbitration
Still can’t reach an agreement in Level 1 Arbitration?
You’ll need to bump it up to Level 2 — and there will be fees involved as below.
How Level 2 Arbitration works
We will ask detailed questions and explore all the issues involved and hopefully reach a verdict.
All correspondence between you and us will be confidential. But remember that anything you share directly with your counterparty will not be private, i.e. we cannot guarantee that your counterparty will or will not do something with it.
If we can’t reach an initial verdict, there are two scenarios:
- The funds will stay in escrow until you and your counterparty agree to disburse them. You both can do this at anytime and we’ll honor your agreement.
- You can ask us to continue with the evaluation, i.e. to keep working on trying to reach a verdict. This will involve more fees.
Why we charge fees in Level 2 Arbitration
- It lowers the risk of OpenBazaar being exploited by scammers. The additional costs discourage people looking to make a quick, dishonest buck.
- The fees also ensure that we can treat the dispute seriously. Evaluating correspondence can take several hours, for example.
Level 2 Arbitration fees
There are three types of fees involved here.
1. A one-off, non-refundable onboarding fee equivalent to 500 EUR.
The point of this fee is to establish a deeper working relationship with us.
You only have to pay it once — even if you have future cases with us as a moderator.
Never go to Level 2 Arbitration with us? You’ll never have to pay this fee.
This fee will cover our costs associated with making sure you are who you say you are, that you can receive shipments at your address, and so forth.
Note that if you take a case to Level 2 Arbitration and pay the onboarding fee but your counterparty does not pay the onboarding fee, then you will automatically win the case.
2. A potentially refundable case review fee of 500 EUR per case.
This fee is independent of the onboarding fee.
Remember that you pay the onboarding fee only once to establish your relationship with us.
But the case review fee is payable to initiate every case.
You can get this case review refunded if:
- We decide a case in your favor.
- We cannot reach a verdict. If our initial review of the case is inconclusive, we’ll return both case review fees to you and your counterparty, respectively.
3. Additional fees after an inconclusive initial review.
As above, if we cannot reach a verdict after an initial review, you can request that we continue reviewing the case. The level of this fee will be set on a case-by-case basis depending on the specifics of the deal.
Conclusion: moving to Level 2 Arbitration means putting some “skin in the game.”
It’s not a decision to be taken lightly.
In the next articles, we’re going to discuss
- how we will aim to reach a verdict in Level 2 Arbitration,
- how we believe this moderation policy will work in several common real-world scenarios, and
- how this moderation policy ties into some best practices for buying and selling on OpenBazaar.
Stay tuned!
Make sure you’re part of the BlockStamp social community and feel free to ask any questions there!
About BlockStamp:
BlockStamp is a Bitcoin blockchain fork hosting an ecosystem of fair play apps, including a true-odds multiplayer crypto gambling platform, a decentralized marketplace listing optimizer, and a private messenger with sword-in-the-stone encryption (launching soon).
