eBay UK: "we want buyers to leave more negs"

We've been hearing two, apparently related, things from eBay sellers for a week or two now - one, a sudden increase in negative and neutral feedback overall, and two, an increase in negative and neutral feedbacks with positive comments. More than one seller has mentioned seeing a negative comment in a string of positives all saying the same thing, with no indication why one should be red.

eBay don't publish any figures on rates of feedback, so it's difficult to figure out what's going on. Then a couple of people reported that the screen that says "are you sure? please contact your seller before leaving non-positive feedback" had disappeared from the feedback flow.

There's been no announcement of any change, so you'd think this was just another glitch in eBays glitchy site, and that it'd be back shortly, and in the meantime, sellers would just have to spend their time explaining to buyers that it'd be really rather nice of you to revise your feedback, if you wouldn't mind, thankyouverymuch, if you could just not destroy my business with your random clicking But if you thought that, you'd be wrong.

Its not a bug. Its deliberate. ...

Continues with comments.