• 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.

Karma?

Sammy hasn't logged in for nearly 3 yrs.
About the only benefit I can think of is that, without the coins, posts take up a little less space (see - all the extra stuff just adds to the height of the profile area)
 
So to be clear, if you know a bunch of people on this site who are contributing members and are friends with them, you can just leave each other positive feedback on every post and boost up your rating? But if you're a new member with no contacts, people can gang up on one post you make and send your karma into the ground, and there is nothing you can do about it?

Not that my karma is in the ground, but I have one post that was made in (what I considered) a joking manner, not offensive to anyone, and am still receiving negative karma from different members for it. I have also contributed to many posts in what I consider to be a positive manner, but since I lack any connections on this site, have yet to receive positive karma. Not sure how a system makes sense when new members are not able to leave positive karma for one another and only established members can boost each other up.

Can someone please elaborate? And if multiple people are allowed to leave negative karma for the same old post, what is to stop it from (potentially) affecting my account for the rest of its existence? If I can't edit posts or remove them, and people can't take a joke, I am forever to be punished by the fauna elite? I guess I just don't get it.

My biggest concern is, if I don't know people on this site, how am I supposed to go about receiving positive karma? How is this system encouraging new members to participate when ONE post that they make can warrant them countless negative karma responses while MULTIPLE posts they make that are actually being helpful and answering questions are never given karma? Does this seem like encouragement for me to use this site?

At the point where I'm actually sitting and looking at threads and saying "hmm, which one of these would I have a chance of someone giving me positive karma for to make up for these negative ones," rather than respond to posts just to provide input or ask questions, something is wrong.
 
Coincidentally I just left you positive karma for a funny post you made, and that seems to have sent you back into green - so it's not that difficult to rectify if you make positive contributions to the forums.
 
Helenthereef said:
Coincidentally I just left you positive karma for a funny post you made, and that seems to have sent you back into green - so it's not that difficult to rectify if you make positive contributions to the forums.
Click to expand...

I may have had a premature outburst. I think that rat bite is getting to me :O

Thanks for the positive though :D
 
You are mistaken on several counts.
- One does not need to be a contributing member to give (good) karma - that feature is available to all members. (only contributing members can leave negative karma, though)
- there are multiple factors involved with karma; including length of membership, post count, and the "karma power" of the person giving them karma. I don't have time to look for it, but Nick (polasian) broke it down & explained it all very well. It's in one of the other threads on this subject; and shouldn't be hard for you to find.
- I mean no disrespect, but you may overestimate the value of your posts. I've seen a lot of them, as you've been rather active; but I haven't seen anything that I thought was "especially good". Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying your posts are bad, or without value - but I don't usually go around checking the "especially good post" box unless I feel the post merits that. Some people are more freely giving of karma, though.
- it isn't that easy to get a couple of friends and buddy bump each other's karma...I don't recall the specific limitations in place (and I'm not sure if they're in polasian's post); but there are features designed to prevent, or at least minimize, that sort of activity.
- I saw that you received karma for the post to which I am responding...most likely not because your post offered much of value, but because of the incorrect assumption you stated in the beginning.


Now I'm curious about what you posted that got 2 people (I checked) to give you negative karma. I'm going looking for it....keep your fingers crossed
 
MCMB said:
At the point where I'm actually sitting and looking at threads and saying "hmm, which one of these would I have a chance of someone giving me positive karma for to make up for these negative ones," rather than respond to posts just to provide input or ask questions, something is wrong.
Click to expand...

We call that karma-whoring. It's pretty much always plainly obvious who's doing it; and pretty much always considered pretty weak. I've noticed that you seem to be spamming the boards here lately - which I'd assumed was a pretty obvious karma-whoring campaign. Honestly, I can't recall having seen you make any particularly useful or insightful posts. Judging a post's merit is a very subjective thing. I've made (what I consider to be) awesome posts that were completely ignored; conversely, I've thrown out halfhearted, jokey posts that apparently appealed to several people who felt the need to give me some karma. I pretty much just say whatever it is I feel like saying, without thinking too much about how it's going to effect my rating.

While I won't argue against the premise that some people go out of their way to find reasons to give their "friends" karma; who you know doesn't really need to factor into the equation. I'm far from being considered likeable or friendly, but I've gotten a fair amount of karma. The best advice would be to just forget that karma even exists. Say what's on your mind and let the rest work itself out.
 
hhmoore said:
- I mean no disrespect, but you may overestimate the value of your posts. I've seen a lot of them, as you've been rather active; but I haven't seen anything that I thought was "especially good"
Click to expand...

I absolutely agree with you on that account haha. I have been trying to be active because this is a forum that I see with a lot of people who know what they're doing and for the most part are extremely helpful when it comes to herps. My concern is that I make one post that (to me at least) was very obviously a joke, and get negative karma from two separate members telling me how useless of a post it was and how it wasn't helpful at all.

Oh, really? So you think I actually wanted them to call and say that they drink snake blood to get it on a plane? It was a joke. A bad one? Yes. Something to warrant negative karma? I didn't think so.

To me this seemed like a friendly and joking community, so I guess I was frustrated that the one time I try to make a joke, it negatively affects my account. I probably shouldn't have had an outburst, but I imagine you can see my frustration.
 
I'm guessing it was this one
Soooo...you could maybe argue that you like to drink fresh snake blood and don't have a source across seas?
That would be my argument anyway
Click to expand...
posted in response to the guy requesting information about how to get his snake(s) to Germany.

Obviously a joke, albeit in poor taste....and I'll agree that the post was of absolutely no value in the thread. Not what I would give you a negative for, at least not most days - but if I was having an intolerant moment, I could see it.
 
Fangthane said:
We call that karma-whoring. It's pretty much always plainly obvious who's doing it; and pretty much always considered pretty weak. I've noticed that you seem to be spamming the boards here lately - which I'd assumed was a pretty obvious karma-whoring campaign. Honestly, I can't recall having seen you make any particularly useful or insightful posts. Judging a post's merit is a very subjective thing. I've made (what I consider to be) awesome posts that were completely ignored; conversely, I've thrown out halfhearted, jokey posts that apparently appealed to several people who felt the need to give me some karma. I pretty much just say whatever it is I feel like saying, without thinking too much about how it's going to effect my rating.

While I won't argue against the premise that some people go out of their way to find reasons to give their "friends" karma; who you know doesn't really need to factor into the equation. I'm far from being considered likeable or friendly, but I've gotten a fair amount of karma. The best advice would be to just forget that karma even exists. Say what's on your mind and let the rest work itself out.
Click to expand...

To be fair, I have only started doing this in the last hour or two because I was very annoyed. Previous to that, I was simply trying to become engaged in this community. I understand where your coming from, but seeing that red mark under your name just irks you a little bit. It did me anyway.
 
MCMB said:
I understand where your coming from, but seeing that red mark under your name just irks you a little bit. It did me anyway.
Click to expand...
Oh, believe me, I've been there. I once negged this site's owner, which didn't end well for my own rating. :ack2: Given my personality type, I'm no stranger to those little red blocks. Ultimately, if the worse thing that happens to you in a given day is that some random person intensely disliked a post you made, how bad can your day possibly be going?
 
hhmoore said:
I'm guessing it was this one

posted in response to the guy requesting information about how to get his snake(s) to Germany.

Obviously a joke, albeit in poor taste....and I'll agree that the post was of absolutely no value in the thread. Not what I would give you a negative for, at least not most days - but if I was having an intolerant moment, I could see it.
Click to expand...

I'm not disputing that it had no value...I just couldn't believe people would give negative karma for something like that. Like I said, it was a moment of frustration knowing that it put my account in a negative light. I'm moving on from it, and I guess I'll just have to watch I say from now on.
 
Fangthane said:
Oh, believe me, I've been there. I once negged this site's owner, which didn't end well for my own rating. :ack2: Given my personality type, I'm no stranger to those little red blocks. Ultimately, if the worse thing that happens to you in a given day is that some random person intensely disliked a post you made, how bad can your day possibly be going?
Click to expand...

Lol....very good point. As my old boss used to say, 'first world problems'.
 
And Dan is correct - going around making posts solely for the purpose of boosting your karma ends up being obvious to a large number of people.
When that happens, some people will respond, others will dig their heels in and refuse. Often it backfires, and some people will look for reasons to give you negative just because you've become annoying in your efforts.
Dan was also correct in saying it's best to just forget about karma, and post what you post. People will appreciate it, or not...if you find that your karma score is dropping, re-evaluating your approach is generally all it takes to correct the problem.
 
For sure. Thank you both for the reasonable responses to my original rampage :p
 
So to make sure I'm understanding correctly, I CAN currently give someone positive karma if I feel it is warranted, but until I have made 100 posts they won't actually gain any karma? Am I reading that right?
 
MCMB said:
I CAN currently give someone positive karma if I feel it is warranted, but until I have made 100 posts they won't actually gain any karma?
Click to expand...
Correct. At this point, it'd a purely symbolic gesture. Instead of a green block, they'll receive a gray one.
 
Gotcha. Thank you both for the help, I actually do appreciate it.
 
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