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With that out of the way, some of you may be aware of what has been taking place on my site lately. I have put up various threads as well as responded to several others concerning a change in store for FaunaClassifieds. Those of you interested in reading more about this are encouraged to go to the forum called
Important stuff that no one will read unless it is in the BOI and check through the various threads posted there about what I am going to be talking about.
What it boils down to is that I feel that FaunaClassifieds has reached a plateau from which it will never progress upwards without a drastic change. This change has in mind two goals that I see as necessary for that future growth hoped for:
(1) There needs to be at least a minimal amount of verification or credibility to the members who have registered who are posting on the BOI as well as posting classified ads.
and
(2) I am just tired of the time, effort, and expense I am putting into this, basically for free.
Starting with point #1, I would have to say that the most common complaint I have heard about the BOI is that anyone can post there and based on the lack of controls in registering, they can be anyone at all pretending to be someone else. People posing as happy customers to post good guy threads about themselves. And bad guys posing as someone else to try to defuse or cast doubt on the damning evidence against them. There are also people who just post nothing but drivel with the sole intention of just stiring up stuff to cause a ruckus. And on yet another level, we have continual problems with people who get suspended, but rather then pay the fine and suck it up, just register anew as someone else and keep up with the stuff they originally got suspended for.
This needs to end. No, I don't think what I am proposing will end it completely, but I think it will definitely put a crimp in things for the people doing this sort of thing.
About point #2. I've been doing this too long and putting up with too much to keep doing this for free. The banner ads and donations help a bit, but honestly, if I am making 50 cents per hour for my efforts, I would be absolutely shocked. We now have over 17,000 registered members, so you can imagine what it is like if even a fraction of them need help with one thing or another every day. So I have reached the point to where I have decided that if FaunaClassifieds cannot become worthwhile to me to continue operating (and by "worthwhile" I mean pay enough that I don't feel that I am sticking my hands into a cage of vampires everytime I sit at the keyboard), then I would just as soon chuck it and go on and do something else with my time. Whether it be laying on a beach somewhere, or doing something that IS profitable for me, it will be MY time being spent in a better manner then webSLAVING over the site.
Now, I have provided a table that will show nearly all of the options and permissions that will be affected by this change. It is a tiered approach where the minimal level to be granted access to POST messages (reading will still be freely accessible) will cost the kingly sum of $10 per year. Other higher levels are available, which will grant the purchaser some more rights and permissions, but the basic entry level membership is the one that probably matters the most. This is listed as "Participant", in the accompanying table, but you can also consider it as a "Verified" member level as well.
So take a look and see what is in store (sorry, but I couldn't just plug in the HTML code here, and trust me, it looked REALLY ugly):
http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...ad.php?t=64541
This is expected to go into operation this upcoming weekend. No firm date, but expect that by Sunday, February 20th, this will be what you will be facing if you return from the site after a long absence. The purpose of this email is to try to limit as much as possible those undoubtedly unavoidable emails that will follow asking "Why can't I post on the BOI like I could yesterday?"
Now if you paid attention to that chart, you probably saw the line about the
BOI Good Guy Certification Forum. This will go hand in hand with the above mentioned paid (verified) membership levels in that I am setting up an area where it will be limited to the simplest of methods to rate a business or person. Basically just a poll and a tie in link with the Traders Ratings system. No replies, no explanations, just simple votes. And ONLY those members that are verified via the Paid Membership plans are eligible to vote in that area. Anyway, click on the link provide to read more about this and get a feel for what this is all about. No need duplicating everything here again.
So, that's it in a nutshell. Certainly not everyone is going to like this change, and quite possible many of you won't care either way if it doesn't affect something you want to do anyway. But to you all that this WILL affect, I felt it appropriate to give you this heads up to think about during the next couple of days.
Thank you for being a part of FaunaClassifieds, and I certainly do hope we don't lose too many of you in the aftermath of this change.
And I do apologize that HTML doesn't appear to work in this email. It looked just GREAT in my test area.....
WebSlave
Linear Mode
