Ophis
New member
" Do B.O.I. participants tend to show unwarranted favoritism towards certain individuals based on their standing (or lack thereof) in the Fauna community or in the Reptile hobby in general"
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Posted 12/19/2024.
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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.
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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.
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Responding to email notices you receive.
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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.
B.O.I. participants play favorites?
- Thread starter Ophis
- Start date
Ophis
New member
Woops.I screwed that up.....no poll
The only way to "play favorites" on the BOI is to say it's okay to cheat or plain just rip off people. Please, someone, anyone, show me the EXACT thread that shows someone doing that. I haven't seen it yet and I do read almost all of the BOI threads. Perhaps I missed something.
The people who "get off" are the ones who RECTIFY and ACKNOWLEDGE that they have done wrong. What more can they do?
The people who "get off" are the ones who RECTIFY and ACKNOWLEDGE that they have done wrong. What more can they do?
cthulhu77
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Karen, I think he was asking if there is a group of people who maybe receive preferential treatment here...
Personally, I think that there is such a group. (was it click or clique...can't remember...LOL ) Not that it is such a horrible thing...just that one has to take certain posts with a grain of salt, instead of knowing that it is non-partisan.
There are some leaders, if you will, on this forum that a number of people seem to follow and agree with no matter what...
greg
Personally, I think that there is such a group. (was it click or clique...can't remember...LOL ) Not that it is such a horrible thing...just that one has to take certain posts with a grain of salt, instead of knowing that it is non-partisan.
There are some leaders, if you will, on this forum that a number of people seem to follow and agree with no matter what...
greg
Greg:
Hey thanks for responding to my post. Some of my posts are simply ignored and I don't care. I'm in no clique.
I don't really care if there are "leaders" who post. I've read hundreds of pages of BOI material and I consider you, Greg, one of those "leaders". I thought you were in that "clique". I don't know where you're coming from with this clique theory.
If someone has an established reputation with good business practices after hundreds or even thousands of good transactions, then they deserve the benefit of the doubt (i.e. preferential treatment). They always have the opportunity to hang themselves as many have done in the past. It's how they conduct themselves when they answer an accusation that counts. If they are less than businesslike, etc. then I'm sure the "clique" will tear them a new a33hole. I don't see a problem that warrants two (so far) threads on the matter. To me it sounds like crying over, well basically, nothing.
Hey thanks for responding to my post. Some of my posts are simply ignored and I don't care. I'm in no clique.
I don't really care if there are "leaders" who post. I've read hundreds of pages of BOI material and I consider you, Greg, one of those "leaders". I thought you were in that "clique". I don't know where you're coming from with this clique theory.
If someone has an established reputation with good business practices after hundreds or even thousands of good transactions, then they deserve the benefit of the doubt (i.e. preferential treatment). They always have the opportunity to hang themselves as many have done in the past. It's how they conduct themselves when they answer an accusation that counts. If they are less than businesslike, etc. then I'm sure the "clique" will tear them a new a33hole. I don't see a problem that warrants two (so far) threads on the matter. To me it sounds like crying over, well basically, nothing.
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cthulhu77
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Karen Hulvey said:
Yikes. I am a legend in my own mind....
Several of the other members have basically said the same thing as you, Karen, that this is just me whining about nothing in particular...
The point striven for is :
Is the BOI the impartial judge and jury it represents itself as?
I think we are merely asking people to take a hard look at how they post, and be fair to everyone. That's all...certainly not a personal attack of the boi, or it's cliques...and yes, I do know that such little tribes exist...that doesn't mean that they should.
greg
mycurlylocks
New member
Hi Joe,
I see you decided to join us after all.
http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=65512
I personally don't feel like there is favoritism on the BOI. I feel like some post more than others; some have much more knowledge than myself and some of the group know each other personally, so that helps also.
I don't ever feel slighted even though I don't post much and don't really have much to offer. I am just a hobbyist, but when I have needed help, I have received it. I feel like I have made some true friends on this forum and that's good enough for me.
I hardly ever feel discontented with this forum. Sometimes I feel like the slamming
can go on a little too long on the BOI, but that's about it.
If I am not happy with, I don't have to read it!
Candy
I see you decided to join us after all.
http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=65512
I personally don't feel like there is favoritism on the BOI. I feel like some post more than others; some have much more knowledge than myself and some of the group know each other personally, so that helps also.
I don't ever feel slighted even though I don't post much and don't really have much to offer. I am just a hobbyist, but when I have needed help, I have received it. I feel like I have made some true friends on this forum and that's good enough for me.
I hardly ever feel discontented with this forum. Sometimes I feel like the slamming
can go on a little too long on the BOI, but that's about it. If I am not happy with, I don't have to read it!
Candy
Ophis
New member
Yep.....I was offered a free membership by a participant who shall remain nameless and being the opportunistic hipocritical bastard that I am (Hey..sue me) I accepted. What the Hell!
cthulhu77 said:
Who ever said that it was? The BOI is NOT a judge nor a jury. It is a BOARD composed of all of the members. No one makes a decision for the BOARD, and there are no penalties doled out as a verdict. Each and every member here is welcome to post their own input about a situation and each and every member is welcome to make their own individual decision about what to make of what has been posted. No one is going to be an OFFICIAL judge here passing sentence on someone. What the BOI is for is to present as much information as possible to anyone with an interest to investigate about a person or business, and the READER making up their own decision about that person or business.
Go ahead, find me a thread on this site where it has been locked with a closing post saying GUILTY or INNOCENT.
No one is having their arms twisted to think a certain way. No one is having their arms twisted to post a certain way. Nothing is deleted or repressed that goes against a majority opinion.
Do you know of a fairer way to do something like this?
dwedeking
Member
I don't think there is any manipulated "clique" on Fauna. By manipulated, I mean that one person or a group of people are controlling the opinions. I think what you are seeing is a natural occurance increased by the addition of the pay status. As an example: Fauna started with a large group of posters from many walks in life, at many levels of the industry, that have different standards of business and life. Even with this large group there was sub-groups that thought in a similiar fashion and would naturally migrate to the same threads and have the same opinions. But with the diversity it wasn't as obvious. When this site when pay, you lowered the number of people with differing opinions (a large portion [but not all] of the ones that paid would compromise one of sub-groups mentioned above) there by removing a lot of challenging opinons.
So, biased people are the only ones who would be willing to pay a fee to be here? People who are only crowd followers and and cliquish by nature would be the only ones to pay a membership fee?
Sorry, I just don't understand that logic. How does $10 make that sort of a dividing line in people here? If anything, I would expect the reverse. Those people taking offense at that $10 fee would likely congregate together somewhere as a clique, being a bit disgruntled that they are on the outside of that door. Probably having rousing conversations among themselves about this state of affairs as well, I bet.
In my estimation, the line it drew was between those people who seriously want to be here to contribute and take advantage of being here, and those people just passing through with no real interest in being participants and contributing to the knowledge that is helpful to be shared with everyone else. The major intent of the paid membership is to try to weed out the FALSE information and crap that could be posted here with impunity and no real restrictions whatsoever.
People only have to pay if they want to contribute input, either for feedback for their own purposes, or to give other people some information that could be of value to them in their decision making. Without paying, they can still TAKE the information that other people have paid to be able to provide. They are just choosing to not give back anything in return, it seems.
I don't have a problem with this, and I am sure other people do not as well. But to say that those people who have decided to pay to be able to contribute and participate in discussions on the Board of Inquiry compose a clique of people who are going to be biased towards all of the other paying members blindly as a group here is just, well, an odd way of looking at things, in my opinion.
Sorry, I just don't understand that logic. How does $10 make that sort of a dividing line in people here? If anything, I would expect the reverse. Those people taking offense at that $10 fee would likely congregate together somewhere as a clique, being a bit disgruntled that they are on the outside of that door. Probably having rousing conversations among themselves about this state of affairs as well, I bet.
In my estimation, the line it drew was between those people who seriously want to be here to contribute and take advantage of being here, and those people just passing through with no real interest in being participants and contributing to the knowledge that is helpful to be shared with everyone else. The major intent of the paid membership is to try to weed out the FALSE information and crap that could be posted here with impunity and no real restrictions whatsoever.
People only have to pay if they want to contribute input, either for feedback for their own purposes, or to give other people some information that could be of value to them in their decision making. Without paying, they can still TAKE the information that other people have paid to be able to provide. They are just choosing to not give back anything in return, it seems.
I don't have a problem with this, and I am sure other people do not as well. But to say that those people who have decided to pay to be able to contribute and participate in discussions on the Board of Inquiry compose a clique of people who are going to be biased towards all of the other paying members blindly as a group here is just, well, an odd way of looking at things, in my opinion.
cthulhu77
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"People only have to pay if they want to contribute input, either for feedback for their own purposes"
Exactly.
Exactly.
dwedeking
Member
Rich,
I did not say that those that pay would be biased either unconsciously or consciously against those that won't/don't pay. The BOI is a paid environment now. This limits by definition those that can post there. A smaller sampling of the industry will limit the diversity of opinions shown on the BOI. Those paying the fee will more likely be of similiar mindset. It is completely natural for those of a similiar mindset to form a clique as that is how the human mind works. Cliques are going to happen on any forum. Again, it's completely natural and not a wild conspiracy.
This is more than just theory as I've spoken to people that used to contribute here but just don't want to pay $10 to tell someone to pull there head out of their nether regions. These were the people that offered a diverse opinion. They were tossed away along with all the "bad" posters as well.
The point I was trying to get across on my original post was that what Gregg (and others have seen it as well) observed was a natural phenomenon (sp?) and not a manipulated result by you personally or other members of your site.
I did not say that those that pay would be biased either unconsciously or consciously against those that won't/don't pay. The BOI is a paid environment now. This limits by definition those that can post there. A smaller sampling of the industry will limit the diversity of opinions shown on the BOI. Those paying the fee will more likely be of similiar mindset. It is completely natural for those of a similiar mindset to form a clique as that is how the human mind works. Cliques are going to happen on any forum. Again, it's completely natural and not a wild conspiracy.
This is more than just theory as I've spoken to people that used to contribute here but just don't want to pay $10 to tell someone to pull there head out of their nether regions. These were the people that offered a diverse opinion. They were tossed away along with all the "bad" posters as well.
The point I was trying to get across on my original post was that what Gregg (and others have seen it as well) observed was a natural phenomenon (sp?) and not a manipulated result by you personally or other members of your site.
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cthulhu77 said:
Greg,
Why did you contribute?
dwedeking said:
No one was "tossed" away at all. They walked away of their own free will. I purposely chose such a small figure ($10) for a reason, you know. And I believe my reasons were hashed and rehashed to death from the time I first approached this topic.
Those people who walked away are using that $10 fee for some kind of trumped up excuse, and not a legitimately overpowering reason, in my opinion. Perhaps quoting "principles" or some other equally novel reason, I guess meaning that they feel it is unethical for someone to make their time and efforts worthwhile financially (if they really think that this is bringing in a boatload of money), or it smacks them of just being unfair in general. I don't know. I did what I felt was reasonable in the evolution of this site. Either the site was going to bust out of the cucoon it was in or it was going to die, and I think I made that point quite clear. I felt very strongly that the Board of Inquiry was a dead end without a change in direction concerning who was going to be posting in it, and I just was not willing to keep the current pace, much less the future headaches on the horizon without some sort of compensation for my efforts. Period. So I put this site into "do or die" mode.
So what manner of people chose to keep it going? Who is it that decided it is worth paying for? How do those people differ from the ones who have decided it is not worth paying for and by implication don't really care one way or the other whether it lives or dies? The only people who are shut out of contributing their opinions do so for a most negligible of reasons, it appears. Does this distinction create a clique? Well yeah, it probably does. And quite likely a clique that I am rather proud of being known as a member of, quite frankly.
So yeah, all of the clique members here are now the only ones providing the information that everyone, non-clique members included, are able to use to find out information about those people and businesses in this industry everyone is thinking of doing business with. So EXACTLY whose fault is that?
dwedeking
Member
Gregg's original question was if what he was observing was being seen by others. No blame or fault was being laid.
So, we find that what Gregg observed is also being observed by others.
Again no blame is being laid at anyone's feet. I was relating my experience in my study of internet users and how they think. I gave reasoning as to why the phenomenon that Gregg observed (and others have seen) is happening and a theory as to why it seems more prevelant now. No blame. You made your choices and others made theirs.
Actually, this was my reason for not subscribing and turning down offers of free subscriptions. My personal opinion is that it defeats the purpose of what I thought the BOI was (which is different than what you precieve it to be). The error was not in your choice of how you run your site but in my perception of what I thought the BOI was. I can accept that.
So, we find that what Gregg observed is also being observed by others.
Again no blame is being laid at anyone's feet. I was relating my experience in my study of internet users and how they think. I gave reasoning as to why the phenomenon that Gregg observed (and others have seen) is happening and a theory as to why it seems more prevelant now. No blame. You made your choices and others made theirs.
Actually, this was my reason for not subscribing and turning down offers of free subscriptions. My personal opinion is that it defeats the purpose of what I thought the BOI was (which is different than what you precieve it to be). The error was not in your choice of how you run your site but in my perception of what I thought the BOI was. I can accept that.
dwedeking said:
OK, so what exactly did you feel that the BOI was? And I am also curious to know how you figured this could remain a workload essentially done for free as well as allow it to remain in such a state that any Joe Blow could come in here, register as 20 different people and cause havoc that way in any number of ways. Heck, without this payment requirment in place, that Joe Blow could come in here post as ALL 20 people talking about negative experiences they have had with YOUR company. Before, it wouldn't cost them a dime to do it, and I'm actually surprised that it has not happened in mass scale. I lived in dread that one of several people certainly with the mental bent we have seen would kick off a pain in the butt campaign like that at any time. Now, yes someone could STILL do it, but that $200 price tag sure does act as a disincentive, plus it would be darned difficult covering their tracks with 20 unique payments.
So no, what surprises me the most, is that anyone that has a business sense could see this going any other way but the way it did. What was supposed to be paying the bills? What was supposed to be compensating me for the amount of time and effort I put into this? The occasional pat on the back and the comments "You done good, Bud, your site just saved me several thousand bucks from a mistake I was getting ready to make."? Banner ad revenue alone? Yeah, right. I could make more money hanging out in parking lots of bars collecting beer cans for the scrap aluminum value.......
But I guess what I loved most was those people who gnashed their teeth proclaiming that my decision was going to be the downfall of this site and bemoaned that fact. Then tried to make their prophesies self fulfilling by trying their damnedest to bad mouth me and this site.
Worked just as well as that boycott against me, I guess.Well, guess what? I pulled a rabbit out of the hat after all. This site is doing just fine, thank you very much, and by all appearances will continue to grow and prosper. We'll have 20,000 registered members here pretty shortly, and I have no idea what the limit is going to be before we just run out of interested people on the net. We are STILL averaging around 25 new registrations PER DAY here!
dwedeking
Member
I have no doubt in our ability to defend our company's practices in a public forum. Matter of fact, the way a person handles a thread will have as large an impact (if not larger) on how others view them as the original situation that brought rise to the situation. Frankly the freedom you allowed people previously gave them enough to do their own hangings, so I don't feel protection was needed.
I felt that the BOI was a service to the community in general. It allowed the small time buyer (one or two reptiles a year) a place to find out about others or get assistance in resolving a situation. It allowed those smaller businesses (the hobbyist who works out of the garage) to get the recognition for good deals. To allow those that don't have a huge list of contacts of who to deal with to avoid the mistakes those of us that have the list of contacts and have done the poor deals have experienced, because a bad deal hurts all of us in the industry. A disatisfied first time customer is one that has a good chance of leaving the hobby. This was the reason for our previous support.
As for how to turn the above mission statement into a financially rewarding project for you, there were many suggestions provided from a large group of people and no need to rehash that here once again.
Again, the point of Gregg's original inquiry was if there was a slanting of the level playing field that was on Fauna.
Ophis
New member
Call me crazy, but in my travels around the net, I have found that the best go to forum for straight up herp care and other related issues save the entertainment value of the drama (and I mean Drama baby!.....woo hoo!) is Kingsnake.com. Educate me Rich, how and or why would that sites owner keep up such a massive undertaking without charging people various higherarchy type fees to post?
Ophis said:
Someone educate this person for me, please.