Questions About the Kiva Website, Itself. Can You Tell Me What's Up With This?

[Guest]

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[Martha]

Another annoyance (on a much smaller scale) I have seen on Friends that someone holding x of a particular loan writes that, if someone wants it, get in touch by PM or on chat, This seems so wrong, being very unfair to other lenders, especially those who are not KF. That is surely not what the basket is for.

Howard

I find it extremely frustrating when I can't get on a loan, then I find out someone is holding some and saying contact me if you want some.  It is also frustrating when someone holds part of a loan for an extended time and doesn't check out.  Sometimes I have tried, unsuccessfully, for hours to get on a loan that I wanted.

Although I can see it would be more efficient to process several loans together when a person is making multiple loans, I think it would be a huge improvement to make people check out after they put each loan in their basket.  That is, if they want to make the loan, they pay right away.  If they don't want to make the loan, it falls out of the basket so someone else can have an opportunity to make the loan.

[AccountAbility]

I think maybe we all need to lighten up a bit (to quote Jill). 

Every system has a huge problem when it is overloaded.  Strange things happen, weird and unexpected responses occur.  In humans we call it a nervous breakdown.  It happens in computer systems and websites too. 

Kiva is on overload right now.  Let's give them some slack.

Dan

[howard]

Martha,

How absolutely right you are! Surely so many lenders must agree. I hope Kiva looks at this and thinks seriously about the matter. We would all (or almost all) benefit, and Kiva lending would be a happier experience all round. And surely so easy to implement, technically.

Re Dan's comment, sure, but a lot of this has been going on for months - it is far from a new phenomenon.

Howard

[Martha]

Re Dan's comment, sure, but a lot of this has been going on for months - it is far from a new phenomenon.

Howard

Dan, I understand the system is overloaded now, but this was a problem before the partial credits and the lending frenzy.

[AccountAbility]

Dan, I understand the system is overloaded now, but this was a problem before the partial credits and the lending frenzy.

It was barely three weeks ago that loans were moving so slow that there was real fear that some might not get funded at all.  The lag time resulting from loans in baskets but not checked out was virtually insignificant because it was spread out across so many loans.  It was a rare occurrence when this "natural" phenomena interfered with a lender's choice.  The situation had previously been spotted by one of our posters here, who sought various remedies.  Most of the responders in the discussion thread felt the fixes were just as bad as the problem.  (If someone wants to dig that discussion up, please link it.)

I am stumped as to why Premal allegedly does not like the timing out notices.  A compromise might be to show the timing out notice on any basket not yet logged in.  As it stands anyone can put a loan in a basket and never even register with Kiva.  So a prankster can anonymously put a large amount in a basket and just leave it there. 

I think a combination of shorter timing out and caps on loan amounts in any one basket are ample solutions for these loan shortage periods.

Dan

[Peter S]

about that "Oops" page of which I'm seeing such a lot these days...

Welcome Kiva Lenders! We're sorry, you are encountering a problem.
While our engineers look into the problem, please take a moment to add your email to our email list or make a donation to Kiva.

While there's a button to click on to make a donation, the page contains no link to add your email to their list.  Not that I want to, as I'm already on it of course, but people completely new to Kiva who get to that page might wonder what's up with that...