Just a (very) few brief remarks from one of the several captains of the mentioned team:
First of all, we will probably have to agree to disagree on whether basket-sharing (within certain responsible boundaries which I have not recently seen violated) per se is legitimate, maybe even desirable in a community-building sense, or morally reprehensible etc. All these points have been discussed ad infinitum. It is in any case within the boundaries set by Kiva and not against any existing Kiva policy.
(...) when I go to the loan it is completely basketed and when I look down at the teams I see the closed team Tisket.
It certainly gives the appearance that a small closed clique is hoarding the loans that all of us don't want to miss. (...)
This strikes me as a highly inconsistent argument, David. Mainly because you are accusing members of team Tisket of basketing a loan because you see them appear among the lenders - as long as they are holding the loan in their baskets, they don't appear as a lending team.
Your (apparent) conclusion - or the "appearance" you claim - thus seems to be that just because one member of team Tisket has chosen to lend (whenever, whyever and however) to a particular loan another member of said team is apparently holding a further chunk in his or her basket... sorry, this doesn't make sense to me.
That you are seeing team Tisket on so many "popular" loans has several reasons, I believe, among them:
(1) The team mainly (but far from exclusively) consists of so-called "core lenders" and has a ratio of almost 170 loans per member; it is in spot 18 of the teams with most loans.
(2) The members are relatively frequent visitors of Kiva with a lot of experience, looking for these special loans and usually finding them rather fast.
(3) Several members are (or should I say: were?) frequent posters in this thread... If you follow a recommendation by Mona, for example, it is quite likely that she has already made a contribution to that particular loan... and - bingo - Team Tisket is in the rotating teams' list (that is, if Mona - in this example - has chosen to attribute the loan to this particular team).
These people are completely blatant and shameless. (...) So we just have to put up with it, until those (probably very few) individuals change their selfish attitude, or Kiva thinks again.
Example - the last two Sri Lanka loans had the last $25 blocked for some 4 hours by someone (perhaps the wellknown lender and KF who was finally revealed as the lender of the last $25 on both loans).
Howard,
you could well argue IMHO that it's not selfish to share with friends.
I find your example a little inconsistent, too, I have to admit: If you are only talking about the last $25 of certain loans, you are clearly not talking about "hoarding" - and with your assumption that the last lender might have been responsible you even say that it probably/perhaps wasn't "sharing". If someone takes a loan and then lends, that's pretty straightforward how it "should" be. Delaying the actual transaction (for whatever reasons) might be raising the hopes of other (potential) lenders, I agree, and I take your point that the mechanics of the basket timer perhaps aren't ideal in that respect, but these "hopes" are in fact vague and maybe even a little selfish, too, because they mean hoping that someone else
doesn't lend.
Shall I tell you something? I am sick of all this moaning, blaming and scratching each others eyes out. This is not what this forum has been set up for. See where you find your loans from now on and get happy with them. I am on posting strike from now on.
I'm sorry to hear that, Mona, and I hope you will reconsider... at least after a brief time-out.
Best wishes,
Wolfgang.
EDIT: Edited as a consequence of Howard editing his quoted post.
