Not happy with no posts in classifieds

[Vintage iron]

As a active Steel soldier and a vender. I am not very happy with the changes to the classifieds. I understand why they were made and spoke to the Admin about the changes. Not many people understand what was going on. There were people stealing customers from members with posted ads. They would see interest in someone ad and the scammer would contact that interested person though PM with a cut rate price. I found out about it through loyal customers of mine. It is sad really!

I think the member comments on the listings are important. It helps the poster adjust their price, see if there is interest and let others see how others liked the one they bought. I have noticed a big drop in sales if items. How does everyone else feel?

 

[porkysplace]

It was partly due to members over bumping there ads also , you know the 7 day bump rule .
There are also a lot of members that post SOLD instead of deleting their ads then when someone would post it would reset the 90 day prune . Then if no one reported it it would plug up the the classifieds . I seen at least 5 ads last week that were posted sold and not deleted.

 

[swbradley1]

PP, Every time you report them we nuke them too.

 

[73m819]

I liked the old way, think under cutters need to be weeded out and booted, A man is only as good as his word and this is part of his character, SS does not need under cutters, if they will STEAL a buyer by under cutting, they CAN NOT be trusted because a thief is a thief, there is NO line between a "good " thief and a "bad" thief.

 

[skinnyR1]

I prefer the old way as well. Alot can be deciphered from the conversation in the thread. Additional details that I wanted to know about it, whether its available or not still, etc.
There are plenty of ads that are still active that are actually sold, and an open comment would quickly eliminate the need for pm conversation only.

Im sure running a forum has its own host of issues. But I think it may be lost on the owners, at times, that a forum is a means communication, and with that comes many unneeded threads as well as comments. This forum tends to err on the side of increased moderation. Ss has every right to run their forum this way, but it probably deters many users from returning unless you spend the time to stick around and see the amount of great content here.

 

[ke5eua]

While I did join SS back in 2009 I was mainly a lurker from time to time so I really don't know the old site.

However, comments on vendor items would be nice. As a business man myself, you pride yourself on reputation.

 

[Recovry4x4]

In a perfect world, weeding the idiots would be the best plan. Sadly, in a forum of this size, even remotely keeping up would be extremely labor intensive. Like every other mod, I have a day job that buys the food and it has to come first. This was the only viable method we could come up with that works wiith what we have. We are open to construtive critisizm but please, if you are going to comment on a problem, offer a solution. Piling on helps nothing

 

[skinnyR1]

I suggest reopening the comments. No reason to punish the masses for the few who are causing the problems. Ban the offenders. I feel that the mods have a strong command here, and could do so. The mods definitely have a strong presence.
This is the only forum I have seen that has locked comments in the classifieds.
What is the actual reasoning, from the horses mouth, for the locked comments currently? Undercutting?

 

[Recovry4x4]

I suggest reopening the comments. No reason to punish the masses for the few who are causing the problems. Ban the offenders. I feel that the mods have a strong command here, and could do so. The mods definitely have a strong presence.
This is the only forum I have seen that has locked comments in the classifieds.
What is the actual reasoning, from the horses mouth, for the locked comments currently? Undercutting?

Did you not read the post directly above yours? If we had a magic wand to find and ban the violators, we would do that. It's just not that simple. Again, I will say, don't pile on. Have a problem? Suggest a solution (other than change it back, that didn't work). If the pile on effect continues the thread will be closed.

If you want to hear it from the horses mouth, read it here. http://www.steelsoldiers.com/showthread.php?119166-Changes-to-the-classifeds
As you can see, the pile on effect got that thread locked up as well.

 

[skinnyR1]

I do see the merits both ways and understand that it is impossible to police 50k members and posts. If the best solution is to lock it down, then so be it. I am not in any position to make that decision, let alone sway the opinion of those running this forum. Even after reading that thread, I do not know how many issues there were to cause this change. I can only assume there were MANY, daily.
Id like to think that the benefits of an open comment field in the for sale outweighs the negative, but again, I have no statistics as to the amount of problem makers or offenders.
It seems important to mods here to keep a clean forum and reduce duplicate posts and off topic side banter. This inititiative with a closed comments probably aids that as well.

 

[porkysplace]

I do see the merits both ways and understand that it is impossible to police 50k members and posts. If the best solution is to lock it down, then so be it. I am not in any position to make that decision, let alone sway the opinion of those running this forum. Even after reading that thread, I do not know how many issues there were to cause this change. I can only assume there were MANY, daily.
Id like to think that the benefits of an open comment field in the for sale outweighs the negative, but again, I have no statistics as to the amount of problem makers or offenders.
It seems important to mods here to keep a clean forum and reduce duplicate posts and off topic side banter. This inititiative with a closed comments probably aids that as well.

With having posts allowed many of the ads just turned into BS threads or nice truck , wish I had the money, to far ect. ect.

 

[fuzzytoaster]

As a active Steel soldier and a vender. I am not very happy with the changes to the classifieds. I understand why they were made and spoke to the Admin about the changes. Not many people understand what was going on. There were people stealing customers from members with posted ads. They would see interest in someone ad and the scammer would contact that interested person though PM with a cut rate price. I found out about it through loyal customers of mine. It is sad really!


I think the member comments on the listings are important. It helps the poster adjust their price, see if there is interest and let others see how others liked the one they bought. I have noticed a big drop in sales if items. How does everyone else feel?

I am on board with you Vintage Iron. Since the new classified rules have come into effect I find it much more restrictive to do business and have taken most of mine elsewhere. You are right about saying "a thief is a thief" in regards to those who steal customers. Customer's commentary/input is valuable and I'd like to see that back as well.

My biggest issue is being unable to effectively manage my classifieds listing and staying in the "7 day" window before posting on it again. I'm not talking about "bumping" but actual productive information. I've gone from an upstanding member since 09 to multiple infractions recently because I'm unable to notify the public of major changes: Temporarily out of stock (<week), mass shipments going out (Inbox doesn't like to message 40+ people simultaneously), and in this case I can't post customer's Q's & A's without repeating the same info until I can post it without another infraction. I've resorted to reediting an ad but it eventually becomes either too much info or locked due to time.

TL;DR: Not pleased.

 

[Evil Dr. Porkchop]

When the change to lock the classifieds was first talked about I wasn't excited about it, but I didn't notice any difference in sales. If I need to add anything to my listings I use the edit function, if it's been too long to edit the original post I'll edit one of the past bumps. A lot of people used to bump ads by adding a small amount of info that could have easily been added to the original post, to get around the 7 day rule. Adding a post to say "thanks for all the orders" or "all orders from yesterday have shipped" seemed over used at times as well.

I think the way the system is now is fine, but I could live with opening the threads back up to comments too. Either way people are going to complain. There are other places to sell, but the fee SS charges for a year is well worth it compared to the auction site most will use instead.

 

[patracy]

Vintage Iron, you're the very reason the changes we made. You were very upset about another individual selling out from under you. The restriction of comments are the only feasible way to prevent this. You even agreed that they would be in the best interest once I explained it. Interesting that you chose to start this thread complaining about it. I never heard anything else from you after the changes were made negative or positive. I do notice that we've cut out a ton of classified ads clutter from it. It's made excessive bumping easy to tend with. And the ad pruning is much faster now.

If you have some means of allowing conversation in classifieds that doesn't allow for the undermining of sales, I'm all ears.

And no, I'm not going to poll the database constantly to trace members PM's to see who's doing what. That's not an option and I'm not going down that path.

 

[patracy]

Either way people are going to complain.

I hate to sound jaded, but I used to try to cater to everyone, but I've come to the realization that it's an impossibility here.

 

[Recovry4x4]

I am on board with you Vintage Iron. Since the new classified rules have come into effect I find it much more restrictive to do business and have taken most of mine elsewhere. You are right about saying "a thief is a thief" in regards to those who steal customers. Customer's commentary/input is valuable and I'd like to see that back as well.

My biggest issue is being unable to effectively manage my classifieds listing and staying in the "7 day" window before posting on it again. I'm not talking about "bumping" but actual productive information. I've gone from an upstanding member since 09 to multiple infractions recently because I'm unable to notify the public of major changes: Temporarily out of stock (<week), mass shipments going out (Inbox doesn't like to message 40+ people simultaneously), and in this case I can't post customer's Q's & A's without repeating the same info until I can post it without another infraction. I've resorted to reediting an ad but it eventually becomes either too much info or locked due to time.

TL;DR: Not pleased.

You can fix 99% of your issues by editing your original ad. You can edit and notify your customers of major changes: temporarily out of stock, mass shipments going out and you can edit in your customers Q&A. If the info you put in is too much, you can also edit some unneccesarry stuff out. It's your ad, you can manage or unmanage it how you wish. Would you prefer your customers to have all the info right there in one post or have to scroll through a whole thread to get all the info? Way too many folks use the "Useful info" or Major Change" as a way to skirt around the bump system. Folks will intentionally leave info off so that they can ad the "meaningful info" later and effect a bump. From there comes the discussion of who decides what is actual info or just bumping. The fair route is the route we chose. If the info becomes too much in your ad, would it not be even more "too much" spread out over a bunch of posts? Again, the staff here is open to constructive critisizm and thoughtful suggestions but to suggest to go back to the failed way is wasting time.

I mean this in the utmost respect to all members but this site is not a democracy. We are trying our best to please the most members that we can but we are not going to allow the site to run off the tracks with mob rule mentality. If anyone has any practical suggestions, we would like to hear them but simply voicing your displeasure and wanting to change it back is not going to gain any traction.

 

[patracy]

If anyone has any practical suggestions, we would like to hear them but simply voicing your displeasure and wanting to change it back is not going to gain any traction.

This, this so much.

I realize it's easy to complain about something. But I've played out this idea over and over in my head. Locking down comments by other posters is the only feasible way I can see to prevent the underselling, useless posting, and over-bumping of ads.

I asked before I made the changes if anyone had any ideas, nothing else was offered that addressed these concerns. BTW, back when we had the old old old classifieds, this problem would have been an issue as well, it just never was brought to light.

Again, I'm all ears. If you have a solution or suggestion for the problems.

 

[Vintage iron]

Yes, Patracy I did speak to you about the problems I was having but you had the solution in the pipeline before I had my issues. If you remember I thought there needed to be more input about it before the change was made! I don't know what the solution is. I was hoping someone could contribute some great out of the box thinking.

 

[fuzzytoaster]

You can fix 99% of your issues by editing your original ad.

I've resorted to reediting an ad..

Yes, that's exactly what I do.

..the staff here is open to constructive critisizm and thoughtful suggestions..

Thank you.

 

[Scar59]

I am on board with you Vintage Iron. Since the new classified rules have come into effect I find it much more restrictive to do business and have taken most of mine elsewhere. You are right about saying "a thief is a thief" in regards to those who steal customers. Customer's commentary/input is valuable and I'd like to see that back as well.

I've been waiting for the issue to raise to the top, sales have dropped dramatically and I believe it is directly related to no customer comments; I understand comments bumped the thread, however they helped answer/address tech issue or conerns with fit, form, and function. A lot of my purchases were based on previous comments from other. Hope a fair medium can be reached; the site is still a great source of information.
JC