• Posted 12/19/2024.
    =====================

    I am still waiting on my developer to finish up on the Classifieds Control Panel so I can use it to encourage members into becoming paying members. Google Adsense has become a real burden on the viewing of this site, but honestly it is the ONLY source of income now that keeps it afloat. I tried offering disabling the ads being viewed by paying members, but apparently that is not enough incentive. Quite frankly, Google Adsense has dropped down to where it barely brings in enough daily to match even a single paid member per day. But it still gets the bills paid. But at what cost?

    So even without the classifieds control panel being complete, I believe I am going to have to disable those Google ads completely and likely disable some options here that have been free since going to the new platform. Like classified ad bumping, member name changes, and anything else I can use to encourage this site to be supported by the members instead of the Google Adsense ads.

    But there is risk involved. I will not pay out of pocket for very long during this last ditch experimental effort. If I find that the membership does not want to support this site with memberships, then I cannot support your being able to post your classified ads here for free. No, I am not intending to start charging for your posting ads here. I will just shut the site down and that will be it. I will be done with FaunaClassifieds. I certainly don't need this, and can live the rest of my life just fine without it. If I see that no one else really wants it to survive neither, then so be it. It goes away and you all can just go elsewhere to advertise your animals and merchandise.

    Not sure when this will take place, and I don't intend to give any further warning concerning the disabling of the Google Adsense. Just as there probably won't be any warning if I decide to close down this site. You will just come here and there will be some sort of message that the site is gone, and you have a nice day.

    I have been trying to make a go of this site for a very long time. And quite frankly, I am just tired of trying. I had hoped that enough people would be willing to help me help you all have a free outlet to offer your stuff for sale. But every year I see less and less people coming to this site, much less supporting it financially. That is fine. I tried. I retired the SerpenCo business about 14 years ago, so retiring out of this business completely is not that big if a step for me, nor will it be especially painful to do. When I was in Thailand, I did not check in here for three weeks. I didn't miss it even a little bit. So if you all want it to remain, it will be in your hands. I really don't care either way.

    =====================
    Some people have indicated that finding the method to contribute is rather difficult. And I have to admit, that it is not all that obvious. So to help, here is a thread to help as a quide. How to become a contributing member of FaunaClassifieds.

    And for the record, I will be shutting down the Google Adsense ads on January 1, 2025.
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

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Big Borg Reptiles

Big Borg Reptiles

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Apparently reptile facebook groups are the next cool thing. To me they are just terrible. Too many people who think they know better than everyone else, compounded by the fact that everyone else is too stupid to correct them. Add in the fact that there is zero accountability because you can just delete posts. And then a mod who basically decides if they want to delete posts or keep them and no one else has any say.

I'm just hoping this fad dies out so that people have to come to sites like this where people will call them out on their BS. I used to think rules were stupid, now I've seen why they're necessary. Maybe I'm just getting older.
 
I have to agree, most FB reptile groups I've been in are terrible. I'm hoping they die out and was actually expecting that they would but now I'm starting to doubt it.
 
Facebook groups are like any other internet forum - they're only as good as their admins and moderators. Most suck because people think it would be cool to start their own group, but they don't realize how much work it is to keep a decent signal to noise ratio.

The best groups I've seen, both on and off FB, are industry-specific, invitation only, and tightly moderated.
 
I agree with that to some extent, but even with an excellent moderator there's no accountability. Here, you say stupid things and rub people the wrong way and your karma reflects that. On FB, you either get kicked from the group or don't, but the thread gets deleted and no one knows what was said. Its basically a free pass to say whatever you want to whoever you want. The more I think about it the more annoyed I get.
 
Everyone has a choice of who and where they hang out. An old timey saying is that you can tell a lot by a person by the company he keeps.
One of my old nursing instructors used to say 'If you want to soar with the eagles, don't eat lunch with the chickens'.
I don't know about all that, I learn a lot from all kinds of people on all walks of life, but I do think that sites with a lot of misinformation and petty squabbling is just not where I want to be.
 
The only groups that really bother me are the wannabe BOI pages. I find myself wondering if FB people actively avoid the real BOI because its accountability scares them. Maybe it's a whole different world, when your words are permanent and easily found/quoted. I suppose it's much easier to come out smelling like a rose when you choose to post in a laughably clunky forum where objectivity is much more the exception than the rule.

I've seen so many BG threads on FB that go off on moronic tangents that would never fly around here. Apparently, once a bunch of someone's buddies pop up to say what a swell person the subject is, no one bothers to dig any deeper or really examine the specific situation. Having long since come to the conclusion that FB amounts to little more than an idiot convention, I only let it bother me so much.

What bugs me most, is seeing Fauna members over there rolling around in the mud. I guess it's kinda pointless to get too worked up over the kind of people who go out of their way to buy from sellers who have been shown to be a liar; even after they've made it a point to come to Fauna and drone on about how important credibility is. Idiocy and hypocrisy will eventually catch up to them. Despite so much evidence to the contrary, I do still try to believe that stupidity generally ends up being punished.
 
Thankfully I've yet to see anything on a facebook group that I had any desire to buy. I also refuse to buy something from someone with a negative BOI review of any kind. If someone has no reviews at all I give them the benefit of the doubt and research them as much as the internet allows, but a bad BOI is an automatic no-go for me.

I made the mistake of trying to discuss things a couple times on FB groups and quickly learned that it is not the same environment as here. WAY too many stupid people, and it's as if they know they're stupid because two minutes after making a post they delete it. I don't understand why anyone would want to be a part of that unless they know they couldn't hack it in a real community because they're full of crap. Needless to say, I'm done with those venues...not before getting extremely annoyed though.
 
MCMB-2 said:
I also refuse to buy something from someone with a negative BOI review of any kind.
Click to expand...

I think it would be a good idea to read through any reviews of those who you are considering entering into a transaction.
There are some negative reviews written that on close inspection actually turn out to be Good Guy threads, and the original poster was mistaken, or worse, simply was there to do damage when he (the OP) was the problem.
 
Lucille said:
I think it would be a good idea to read through any reviews of those who you are considering entering into a transaction.
There are some negative reviews written that on close inspection actually turn out to be Good Guy threads, and the original poster was mistaken, or worse, simply was there to do damage when he (the OP) was the problem.
Click to expand...

No no I completely agree, I didn't mean if I see a "bad guy" thread that's it. I always read them to see if there is any validity to the claim because I've seen a lot of "backfires" lol. If I still have any doubt after reading through I don't like to take my chances.
 
I think most of us have seen good guy threads turn into bad ones as well. I'd rather do a little extra research when buying so that I know exactly who my money is going to.
 
I'm part of the moderator of the Facebook group "Keep Our Snakes Off The Lacey Act." Just trying to get people together to inform them about the Lacey Act and remind them to donate to USARK while also trying to educate people who might be afraid of snakes about how great they actually are. It can be hard work keeping up with the trolls who keep trying to post ISOs on the page for things that are illegal in the state which is why we try not to have classifieds at all.

There's other groups I'm apart of mainly so I can see other people's animals (it is like cat photos for me) but there's sometimes terrible advice being thrown around and when you try to correct someone, they bite your head off. I try to be helpful where I can but if no one wants to listen to you...there's not much you can do.

My fiance says it's not really my business to get entwined with people's knowledge but I don't know, maybe someone will learn something they didn't think of before. :shrug01:
 
CombatWombat said:
My fiance says it's not really my business to get entwined with people's knowledge but I don't know, maybe someone will learn something they didn't think of before. :shrug01:
Click to expand...

I disagree with your fiancé. If someone is spouting some nonsense that might actually end up hurting a critter I think it is an act of kindness to at least put your opinion out there and allow readers to think and decide.

CombatWombat said:
when you try to correct someone, they bite your head off.
Click to expand...

Experience may teach ways of presenting information that puts it out there but is not written as a correction.
There are trolls whose sole diet is heads, those types will for sure give you an incentive to polish your writing skills :)
 
Lucille said:
If someone is spouting some nonsense that might actually end up hurting a critter I think it is an act of kindness to at least put your opinion out there and allow readers to think and decide.
Click to expand...

I completely agree. In a Crested Gecko group last night...I went through a step-by-step with someone who found pinworms in their cresties poop and had no idea how invasive pinworms can be. There was also someone going on about cage carpet being a good choice...oh and my favorite using bleach for spot cleaning. It makes me really nervous and I don't want an animal to lose it's life because of idiocy.
 
Also, how are you going to educate anyone about how awesome reptiles are if you keep your mouth shut.
 
The problem with the facebook scene, and the reason it's so frustrating to me, is that when you try to help someone (and by that I mean help the animals) you get responded to with a bunch of stupidity. There's no reasoning with people who are either too dense or too stubborn to admit they might be wrong, and all that happens is I get very discouraged. I can't say I get mad because I tutor 20 hours a week and have to know how to be patient, but at least the people I tutor don't spout a bunch of nonsense when I try to point something out to them.
 
And as far as readers being able to decide, there is WAY too much deleting and editing to even know what's happening half the time. I tried going back and reading through a post once and it didn't even make sense, there were responses to posts that didn't exist, people being mentioned that weren't even on the thread anymore...I don't know, it just seems like a waste of energy to even acknowledge people.
 
The groups that really bother me are the Facebook BOIs. If there is a bad guy being brought to the surface but an admin is friends with said "bad guy" the thread is deleted. Then the admin strikes down some banhammer that discussing that person will result in being deleted from that group. Pardon my language, but that's some biased shit.
 
Here is a rich pne, just had an argument in a group. Chick says there are het pastels...lol. I said no. Then omg she lost it and i am a clueless dumb ass
 
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