Sounds like a joke to me, for at least two reasons:
#1. the phenomenon of shunning 'negative results' is very wide spread, the matter comes under scrutiny even for scientific results (i.e. data reported among experts in publications subject to double-blind peer review), let alone Ebay - a 'double blind' medium if there ever was one.
#2. the declaration of intention cited does not mention important factors that contribute to the phenomenon: fraud, coercion by sellers on buyers to withdraw negative feedback, and lack of incentives for transparency for everyone. I am not sure if anything can be done to address these, but to summarize everything down to 'fear of exposure' is very evasive, IMO.
I don't get it why feedback on auction format would be any more reliable than feedback on auction results. Any ideas? The new feedback might help sell fancy auction features though
My 2c
I'll be watching that one, sure that
