Swap Bot Results

I joined Swap-Bot.com in October 2006 to do some art swapping.

To date, of the swaps that have closed and have had plenty of time to get here, this is my result.

I have received envelopes from 14 senders.

I have 9 that I have received nothing from.

So that means I have sent out 23 swap envelopes and received 14 in return.

That is not a good ratio.

I am currently hosting some swaps on Swap-bot.com. I have tightened my restrictions on who can join my swaps. I am not allowing anyone with a rating lower than 4.5 out of 5 to join my swaps. If anyone in my swaps does a "no send" they will be banned from my future swaps. When a person doesn't get someone's swap they are supposed to rate them a "1" which will bring down their average.

I guess the only and best way to manage this at this time, for public swaps there, is to be the host of the type of swaps that I want to participate in. Then I can control and ban the bad swappers. If I am a regular and frequent host there I can then keep out the rule breakers and the "no senders".

Swapping art through the mail with total strangers is risky. However this ratio is horrible, so far, and it seems the responsibility level of the players needs to be raised.

Another option is to find a small group of trustworthy people and host private swaps.

I was hoping for easy swapping with naturally trustworthy people but perhaps that is asking too much. Sigh.