A pro-active approach to the BOI

I have just opened this new forum up as READ ONLY to everyone so I can get some comments about my latest hare-brained project.

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=813

Actually, I have had this on the back burner since sometime in 2002 when I first thought about implementing it. But for various reasons, I held off, mostly because I felt it would be more headaches then it would be worth.

But now with the paid membership levels imminent here, this is a much more feasible idea to approach with some slim hope of success.

Anyway, I am still working on the WELCOME message, so bear that in mind as you read it. Things may change as I think about them further. One particular point that I haven't quite decided on yet is whether or not I should tie participation completely to some level of the paid membership plans. Voting, of course, will be enabled ONLY on the paid (verified) member levels, but I am not certain about the participants themselves. It will take some work on my part to implement this fully and do the management and maintenance, so I am more inclined to have this a paid member level perk then not.

But I am open to suggestions, pro and con.

Thanks......

perhaps it's just my computer but the link seems dead

Great idea!!

Seems somewhat complicated.....maybe it's just late and probably need to read again. But from what I am getting from it....It looks like a great idea.

Bthacker

Bthacker said:

Seems somewhat complicated.....maybe it's just late and probably need to read again. But from what I am getting from it....It looks like a great idea.

Bthacker

Click to expand...

Well if you can come up with some ideas to simplify it, please let me know. I have been thinking about this for quite a long time, and have tried to look at it from every angle I could think of. I have seen people who were perfectly capable of abusing an anvil with a rubber hammer, so I am trying to make this as foolproof as I can. I do admit that one stumbling block is going to be that the member (user) is going to have to plug the code into his/her own website. From my experience with FaunaTopSites, where it is a similarly acting system, some people cannot paste in the code, either from shortcomings in the code generator they use, or the fact that they are not at all familiar with what is needed in order to be able to do this. This is unfortunate, but I see no way around it.

The images need to be serialized because otherwise anyone can scrape the image and put it on their website. So there has to be some manner of accountability for each image out there on someone's website. Of course, one obvious weakness is the fact that I don't have much leverage at all legally if someone decides to just steal the image and put it on their own website. The best I can do is to just take steps to show publicly that such an occurance has taken place and leave that as it's own indication of the type of person or business someone would be dealing with.

So anyway, yeah, help me out if you can to simplify things. Most of this is going to be a manual process, so it is going to be rather a pain in the butt for me. But if I see it being used as it is intended, then I think I could get this mostly automated. A lot depends on the paid membership project flying or not, since that will tell the tale as to whether or no I even have the funds to carry this out as it is.

One simple question, would you're address you submit be visable to the public?

I think it is an excellent idea. It looks like a quick and reliable way to get a general idea of how a vendor does business prior to making a purchase. I myself, if this plan went into effect, would put great store by a business who had this certification. I particularly like the displayed name poll feature, too.

I have a question about those who have multiple purchases from one vendor. There are exceptions to every generalization, but I have noted three broad classifications of people who do business in the reptile industry:

There are those who are low life scamming slimeballs (and the BOI has been a pioneer in exposing these guys and educating consumers so that they may make good choices and not deal with such people).

There are good, honest vendors who from day one of their business operate with integrity and make quality animal care and good customer service their highest priority.

It is the third category that my question deals with. There are new vendors who start a business and begin not from either of the above two classifications but instead fall somewhere in the middle. We have all seen on the BOI stories of those who have missed a ship date, or accidentally shipped an animal that did not conform to expectations. These guys can end up going either way with their business. They can immediately send out a replacement shipment if warranted, or otherwise clean up a shaky start, or they can deteriorate and become one of those vendors best not dealt with.

Will there be a way for those who have had more than one experience with the same vendor to address the middle classification of people and vote more than once in the poll, or in some way address their personal experience, if they have had separate experiences that have had separate outcomes?

If not, the overall picture would still be a good measure of the vendor, as each completed experience by a purchaser generally ends on either a positive or negative note and all of these wotes taken together will give a good picture of the overall quality of a vendor, over time.

I like the idea.

WebSlave said:

Of course, one obvious weakness is the fact that I don't have much leverage at all legally if someone decides to just steal the image and put it on their own website.

Click to expand...

(Upside) Unless you had is copyrighted. Then you could go after them with both guns a blazing.

(Downside) Of course that would cost time and money.

...Or would that fall under Trademark protection?

A very interesting idea!

Sort of a "Seal of Good Housekeeping" for herp breeders and dealers. I believe you said that the icon would lead back to info on your site regarding the dealer /breeder. If the icon was a clickable link, you could work something into the design of the symbol that said something like "invalid unless link is working" or something to that effect. Then if somebody steals it, one can easily tell there is no link and it is stolen.

If enough businesses started using it, of course it would bring a lot more exposure to the BOI. Newbies would see the seal on some sites, but not others, so would probably try to find out what it is all about and discover this site much sooner than they might otherwise.

I will be interested to hear whatever pros and cons others might think up about the idea.

lucille said:

It is the third category that my question deals with. There are new vendors who start a business and begin not from either of the above two classifications but instead fall somewhere in the middle. We have all seen on the BOI stories of those who have missed a ship date, or accidentally shipped an animal that did not conform to expectations. These guys can end up going either way with their business. They can immediately send out a replacement shipment if warranted, or otherwise clean up a shaky start, or they can deteriorate and become one of those vendors best not dealt with.

Will there be a way for those who have had more than one experience with the same vendor to address the middle classification of people and vote more than once in the poll, or in some way address their personal experience, if they have had separate experiences that have had separate outcomes?

If not, the overall picture would still be a good measure of the vendor, as each completed experience by a purchaser generally ends on either a positive or negative note and all of these wotes taken together will give a good picture of the overall quality of a vendor, over time.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, a member here can only vote on a poll once. So of course, there are drawbacks to that based on the scenario you painted. Yes, we have seen good guys go bad, and have also seen bad guys go good. There is nothing at all that can be done to prevent that. Bad guys going good is a good thing, and probably a real tough road for the bad guy trying to get onto the straight and narrow after having been exposed for their wrong doings. But it IS possible to do.

Good guys going bad is very problematical. People WILL get burned because of the initial good reputation and there is not a single thing that can be done about that. But my suspicion is that not only repeat customers will be getting burned, but new ones as well. So as for the reporting poll is concerned, I believe that the balance of points will begin to move into the red zone pretty quickly to call them out. Plus the regular BOI will always be there for the astute buyer to check out for fast paced developments. These will likely be automatically linked as similar threads to the poll thread, but if not, then either myself or the mods, depending on time available, may put in referring links to the BOI within the thread to alert people of a possible problem.

One thought that popped up was that I probably don't have too much to worry about concerning bad guys just swiping the certificate and putting it on their site. Many people seeing it on their site will probably be curious enough to come here to FaunaClassifieds to check it out anyway, and within a very short period of time would be able to determine the bogus nature of what the other site where they saw the certificate was doing. So in effect, this person would wind up shooting him or herself in the foot by doing something like that.

BTW, I am already taking reservations from people who want to participate in this program when it is implemented. The early birds get the worm for the lower numbered slots. That forum has been altered so that it is sorted in alphabetical order via the certificate numbers, so the lower numbered slots will ALWAYS be on the first page.

Numbers will be recycled if people drop out of the program for one reason or another. This can happen under a couple of circumstances:
(1) The member drops into the negative reputation zone and resigns from the program accordingly, or

(2) The member allows their membership to this site to lapse and they are no longer a member of the lowest permissible level to take part in this program.

(3) The banner certificate has been removed from the member's site. Periodic audits will be done, so any listed website that does not any longer have the banner will be requested to re-install it or be removed from the listing.

Yeah, there is going to be some grunt labor associated with this, which is why I am making the minimum level for participation being a paid membership.

Great idea...

I like the idea and I support it. Count me in.

I decided to move the BOI Certification Forum to a subforum of the BOI. Just trying it on for size to see how I like it. I think that this may be a more appropriate place for it, as it will be working hand in hand with the BOI as another tool in the toolbox.

I have my programmer working on one of the last hacks I need done before I can implement this. Plus I am about ready to implement the paid membership program as well. I think the paid membership discussion is finished, and everyone is just waiting on me............

Thanks.

BTW, if anyone wants to see this in actual use, I have put the Certification Banner on my SerpenCo site so you can see it in action.

I have not yet enabled the voting capability within the actual thread the banner links to, as that is going to be tied to the paid membership program.

But I figured you all might want to get an idea of what it looks like in action.

Thanks.

In the graphic itself, it should say something like, "click here for this member's certification." The link on their web site should go to a page that YOU maintain and control, containing a list of the people who are approved to display the logo.

Otherwise, what's to stop anybody from grabbing the thing and plastering it on their site?

What about people who do not have webpages? This would be for people who dont know about fauna, right? would you be able to post the banner on other sites ? like a kingsnake.com classified? or would it be deleted by them?

What about the voteing thing, would people be able to vote you as a bad or good guy even if you have not done actual transactions with them?

snakegetters said:

In the graphic itself, it should say something like, "click here for this member's certification." The link on their web site should go to a page that YOU maintain and control, containing a list of the people who are approved to display the logo.

Otherwise, what's to stop anybody from grabbing the thing and plastering it on their site?

Click to expand...

The html link that will be provided pulls the graphic from my own server, and the link points directly to the thread in the Certification forum relating to this business/person. The Certificate banners are also serialized with a number that corresponds to the assigned number indicated in the voting thread about this business person. So, if someone sees a Certificate banner with the number #0013 and the website is for Joe Blow's Boas, and they come to this site to check it out and see that #0013 is actually assigned to Picky Pete's Pythons, then they will know immediately that Joe Blow's Boas is using a bogus certificate graphic. That right there should be enough warning for them to think carefully about doing business with such a business/person.

And yes someone can just grab the image and post it on their website without a forwarding link, but how long do you really think that will go unnoticed? If it happens, then it will be a simple matter to put up a forum or thread solely to call out those websites showing the bogus certifications.

No it's not perfect, but I think it may be effective.

Vince said:

What about people who do not have webpages? This would be for people who dont know about fauna, right? would you be able to post the banner on other sites ? like a kingsnake.com classified? or would it be deleted by them?

What about the voteing thing, would people be able to vote you as a bad or good guy even if you have not done actual transactions with them?

Click to expand...

Well interesting point. If you don't have a webpage, then you probably have no need for the certification anyway. My suggestion would be to get a website.

It is not necessarily only for people who do not know about FaunaClassifieds. But how many people can you remember right off of the top of your head that have been mentioned in the BOI? Was the discussion good or bad? As I said at the beginning, this is a PROACTIVE method to help out the good guys, and help paint the bad guys into a corner.

I don't see any reason to post the Certificate banner on any other website. As a matter of fact, I would think it would be a negative thing to do, as it may make people think that the website carrying a Certificate assigned to someone else was trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes claiming it was THEIR certificate being displayed.

As far as the Certificate being posted in a kingsnake.com classified ads, I guess that is up to Jeff Barringer. That would be his decision to make.

Rich

I like the idea, as Kathy said, sorta like a good housekeeping seal. However in order for it to be full effective, I think it would need to be acceptable with Jeff @ Kingsnake. I dont think he is the be all end all to do with web sales, but if its not accepted there, it would be difficult for it to be fully effective.

I guess this would be a good test to yours and Jeffs ability to work together at this point for the good of the herp community. Maybe you should contact him in regards to this issue, and let everyone know what he says. If not I guess once I get my cert I can post it on a ks add, and see what happens.

Either way very interesting idea.

I was thinking of makeing an account on kingsnake at the same time as fauna*when fee starts. but if kingsnake will delet ads with the link I will not be giveing them my money

Mickey_TLK said:

Rich

I like the idea, as Kathy said, sorta like a good housekeeping seal. However in order for it to be full effective, I think it would need to be acceptable with Jeff @ Kingsnake. I dont think he is the be all end all to do with web sales, but if its not accepted there, it would be difficult for it to be fully effective.

I guess this would be a good test to yours and Jeffs ability to work together at this point for the good of the herp community. Maybe you should contact him in regards to this issue, and let everyone know what he says. If not I guess once I get my cert I can post it on a ks add, and see what happens.

Either way very interesting idea.

Click to expand...

This certificate banner was not really designed with the thought of it being placed on ads people may place on other sites, although that is completely up to them, within reason. It is intended to be placed on the actual website of the person or business interested in carrying this "Seal of Approval". What other novel uses people may find for it is up to them and how they wish to use it, as long as it does not violate my intentions of how it should be used. How it will be accepted on other websites that classifieds may be posted on showing this certificate within those ads is not really my concern. Nor do I believe it will influence the acceptance or rejection of this project as a whole.

Personally, what you may post on your ads in another classified site and how the owner responds to it is between you and him/her. I see no reason for me to get into the middle of that issue at all.