Can't seem to reply in my own threads...

Originally Posted by PMHerps

if you close an ad, do you still have the ability to bump/highlight it via the control panel ?

Yes, contributing members can use the bump feature to bump locked ads as well.

I'm not a paying member yet, though I plan to become one very soon (next month? )
I have trouble finding things in the BP classifieds also. It's difficult to sort through the posts--sometimes people ask really good questions on a "for sale" thread where I was just about to ask the same thing to the OP, but it's already been asked and answered on the thread. Other time there's 6 pages of "bumps", and I hate scrolling through all of them just to find the pertinent information, such as the good questions, which animals have been sold, etc.
Most often though if I have an offer I want to make to a seller I just PM them as I don't want everyone on the whole board seeing that. It just takes up space.
I don't know of a solution, but then again, I don't know all of what is capable of being tweaked on an internet forum, and I don't know to what extent it can be tweaked. I'm sure the mods will figure something good out.
(Besides, $25 to become a contributing member isn't bad at ALL,especially not when it goes to a good site like Fauna.)

Originally Posted by PMHerps

if you close an ad, do you still have the ability to bump/highlight it via the control panel ?

Yes, you can.

Originally Posted by djsii82

Pms are ok but if selling multiple animals then your add is still getting buried. Plus we have many people who like to ask questions and when all answered we don't even make the sale so pms aren't that great for sales but it is for offers you don't want knowone to read about. I posted my opionion in the arboreal page. Sorry webmaster didn't know there was a forum already.

Originally Posted by djsii82

Another thing that may help is letting the adds expire. To many people respond to adds that animals are already sold and people should not be allowed to post SOLD on an animal was it is sold. We can care less and again just pushes others adds back. Very unnecessary

If one is posting multiple animals in one ad, posting which ones are sold is of benefit to everybody (provided that people pay attention to that information). What WOULD be of benefit is people managing their ads. I do keep a handful of ads up after the animals are sold, as it serves as a bit of a reference for people checking my ads...but, if I put up new ads for something I had previously advertised, I take the old ones down.

For the most part, I would prefer to see ads closed to comments...but, that is my personal opinion, and I'm not going to try to force it on anybody (except the people responding to my ads - if you post in my ads, it will be ignored or removed). One strong argument for leaving ads open is the posting of links to BOI threads....of course, if people checked the BOI themselves, that would be totally unnecessary.

I have to agree that paying members should have benifits in the classifieds sections that non-paying don't have. You have to pay just to post classifieds on kingsnake. Count your blessings here that you can at least post for free.

If it were me setting up the rules I would make it so that Non-paying members would be limited to 1 or 2 posts in any one classifieds section per day. These posts can be starting a new ad or bumping an old one. That is plenty of posts for a hobby breeder to sell his animals.

Maybe bronze gets 6 posts per day, silver memberships get 9 posts per day per section and gold gets 12.

Buyers can waist their posts responding to other peoples ads with legitimate questions or they can PM questions to as many people as they want!

I don't know if that works or not, but it is a thought. As for all the bump posts I try to limit them when I post since I have figured out how. The main reason though is it starts to look desperate if you have too many posts that go "Bump..."! lol

What about the people that put an ad up for each snake & have like 10 ads that they bump a day. That more than anything seems like a problem to me. I think that even the highest of paid members should have restrictions.

We plan on becoming a paid member by all means. We just wanted to start selling a bit more before doing so. Someone earlier in this thread had mentioned Kingsnake. Yes they require you to pay before posting & so forth. But they didnt let you do things for free untill the site got big & then it became about who has the money. I am NOT saying that is what this site is doing. I am simply pointing out that Kingsnake never gave you a choice & that alotta people here will more than likely take it as that is what this site is doing.

Yes, i agree that something needs to be done. Start looking at the ads & finding the real problems though. Just because some people pay doesn't mean that the non payers are not people that really care & want to be part of this business. There are thousands of thousands more non payers than there are those who pay if im not mistaken. This site is the PERFECT way for people to get started in this hobby & see how they like it. If they can't sell on here. They are gone. So without the thousands upon thousands of non paying members here, you paying members would have no one to sell to. People would stop joining & the hobby would no longer continue to grow the way it has. Not everyone can afford to just jump on in like some of us are fortunate to do.

As far as leaving the ads as open threads or not. That could go either way. Harold brought up a brilliant point earlier. If people would just check the BOI out. There would not be much need for it. But.... What about the new people that dont know about the BOI & what it has done to help the wonderful people in this hobby? Some one earlier mentioned about asking questions & letting the answer be on there for all to see. A good salesman....sales person, LOL, should have all the info you need on the ad. We try to get all the info you need right there. If you want additional pics, thats something were going to email you anyway. My point, Either way i couldnt care. It is a good way for people to interact more with each other though. I believe this site would be what it is with closed threads though.

THIS IS ALL JUST IMHO

It simply comes down to if people would police themselves and be considerate of others, rules and changes would not become necessary. Instead of being upset with Rich for having to make changes, you should be upset with those who have caused the problems which are making the changes necessary.

Originally Posted by JHMills

Someone earlier in this thread had mentioned Kingsnake. Yes they require you to pay before posting & so forth. But they didnt let you do things for free untill the site got big & then it became about who has the money.

Actually they did if I remember correctly. They've been around over 15 years, and this site stayed free MUCH longer than they did, and this site is still free to a great extent, it's just those taking the free ride will no longer be getting more benefits than those who pay for it.
I don't see how anyone can really argue that logic.

In my opinion if someone can't scrape up $25 to join this site for an entire year, which is 25% of what k.com charges, then they really can't afford to be taking care of reptiles in the first place. I mean come on, $2 a month is less than the feed bill for one cornsnake.

This rule change in no way prevents anyone from posting their ads for free here, it ONLY stops them from bumping them to the top incessantly. Nothing else about your use of the site changes.
For those regular members who think they are somehow entitled to as much if not more privileges on this site than those who contribute to the ongoing survival of the site, then hate to burst your bubble, but that's life.

The simple truth is that there will probably never be a situation that pleases everybody. Some people complain that others post too many individual ads, instead of lumping them together; others complain that their aniimals go unnoticed, and sales drop, when they group them together. Group A complains about the number of ads Group B posts; and Group B doesn't like Group A bumping their ads 3 times/day. Some complain when a seller locks his/her ads; others complain about all the posts getting in the way. Some complain about people posting things they feel should be sent privately; others complain that they don't check PMs or emails, so everything should be posted. Some people don't mind contributing to a site & getting some extra benefits for doing so; others expect everything to be free.

Advertising is free here, almost always has been....one of the perks of paid membership, since I started contributing way back when, has been the ability to bump ads (and I'm not talking about the free bump that is part of this issue). I'm not sure what is so hard to understand about the statement THIS IS A TEMPORARY MEASURE, but people have got their knickers in a twist prematurely. I know some people are just like that, but here's a clue...it doesn't help. People when we don't do anything, people when we try to fix things...the common ground - people . Rich is used to that, as are the rest of us; so he is trying to work out a solution that results in the best fix and stays user friendly. The basic idea is that Rich's goal is for this site to flourish; but, as it gets more and more use, the cost of keeping it going goes up. Taking away the perks of paid membership is a good way to convince people not to renew their subscriptions. Sure, the something for nothing crowd will be happy, but their main interest in this site is what it can do for them right now....and, if the site becomes unmanageable, or shuts down, they'll just about that, too.

We get it, people are pi$$ed....but, in case I haven't stressed this point enough yet, THIS MEASURE IS ONLY TEMPORARY. My recommendation is that everybody take a good strong dose of Suckitup, and wait until Rich makes the announcement about what the solution is going to be. Then you can all to your hearts content.



(Just for the record, since I know this isn't reflected above - the constructive thoughts regarding the situation, and possible remedies ARE appreciated. Some may not be feasible due to system limitations, or the amount of custom programming required, but at least some of you are trying to help.)

Originally Posted by DAND

It simply comes down to if people would police themselves and be considerate of others, rules and changes would not become necessary. Instead of being upset with Rich for having to make changes, you should be upset with those who have caused the problems which are making the changes necessary.

There is a lot of truth there.

If this were a perfect world, and all of you as well as myself were perfect in this perfect world, rules would not be necessary to have.

I have had requests to do something about the ad bumping for a long time now, and I basically told people that the amount of traffic in the classifieds really didn't warrant paying for custom coding to do anything about it. Plus, in my opinion anyway, it is ridiculous to assume that someone looking to buy something specific, or even just browsing for something that catches their eye, is going to stop looking once they get to the bottom of page one in a classified section. The act of bumping ads several times a day to me shows desperation from a seller, and if I were interested in buying from them, I would use that to every advantage when we sit down at the bargaining table.

I have had it said to me in the past that the perks I offer for paid memberships really isn't worth paying for, so people declined. That's OK with me, because all in all, those paid memberships really are contributions from people who desire having this site survive the long haul. I still intend to keep it that way, for the most part, but although I fully intend to keep the posting of classified ads FREE to all registered members (I got bit HARD by that one in the past), I do reserve the right to limit the bells and whistles to paid memberships as it seems prudent to do so to help increase the value of the paid memberships to those CONTRIBUTORS who make the effort to help out this site financially. Personally, I think this is fitting and fair to do.

Sorry, I had to do this abruptly NOW, but after browsing through the classifieds and seeing some instances of members with a couple of PAGES of replies that consisted of nothing other than "BUMP" messages, I just decided to put an end to that right NOW. I have my programmer working on a more elegant solution, but for anyone expecting a PERFECT solution to this problem, that just is not going to happen. Simply because there is NO perfect solution that everyone would agree on.

There are some very good suggestions made within this thread about possible solutions, but complicated modifications to the code are a nightmare to address when the basic system software to this site has to be upgraded. As it is now, upgrades are very expensive to me, because all of the current custom code modifications done to this site have to be rewritten all over again each time that happens. And the suggestions of making up rules that would have to be enforced manually by the moderators, well, guys, give them a break, please. They all work hard enough as it is for this site, and we've already apparently lost some due to burn out, and I don't care to lose more by dumping even more upon their shoulders.

I do intend to modify the number of highlight/bumps per membership category, and am even considering resurrecting the old "Participant" member group for those members who only have an ad or three and would like to be able to bump them, but don't want to spend the $25 per year to do so.

Oh, and as for this reply in this thread:

Originally Posted by grogansilver

i have been a member for many years here and now sense when did this site become a paying site? i always thought it was Donations that one was willingly able choose to grant to this site for the help of reptiles either in need of homes or for sales. I find it wrong that money is now an issue here in who does what they want. Restore my privileges please.

I assume you are just donating your animals, time, and efforts to whomever asks for them, aren't you? You aren't letting the issue of "money" sully your hands, I assume. Posting classified ads is still free here. If what I offer here is not good enough for you, the internet is just filled with other options for you to pursue.