• 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.

How do you give someone karma?

Socratic Monologue said:
I think I get the same problem Rich gets. I don't usually use a phone, but this is the display on Safari on an iPhone 8:
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Is that what you see on your cell phone?

It appears that the entire section showing the person making the post is missing, which also contains those icons needed to enable the functions for reporting posts as well as karma. Note the below screen capture from my PC's screen.
 

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I have received the karma you sent, Rich. I tried going through google over safari to see if it mattered, it didn’t. I’m gonna try my wife’s phone just to eliminate any possibilities.
 
Karma bar

This is my screen shot, April. It’s how I see everyone’s. No way to leave karma or report an ad.
 

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checked on my phone and it is the same (I don't normally use this site on my phone) - so it's some sort of limitation with the mobile devices.
 

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I don't think anyone should be surprised that converting a site written for regularly sized computer screens to be compatible with the tiny screen on a cell phone would require some compromises. To try to put all the same on-screen functions and visuals into a cell phone screen would be like trying to force 10 lbs of potatoes into a 5 lb bag. You either need to whittle the potatoes down so they all fit, or you leave some of them out.

Imagine trying to read anything if all the text were about half the size of this sentence.


Or images reduced so much in size that you really couldn't tell what they were. Compare the smaller image on the left below to the one more full sized on the right.
 

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Yeah, I was just trying to assist Rich P. to troubleshoot and confirm what the issue was.
:)
 
ok, im on my granddaughters laptop and all my icons are here! must be the phone!
 
I figured out how to give karma while on my iPhone. Several people have the same issue.
All you have to do is click on the “desktop” version on the bottom of the opening page I believe it was.
Once I used the desk top version, my icons all appeared.

Best of luck.
 
I felt like was beginning to achieve nirvana after I received positive karma twice from other members on fauna. Then I received negative karma twice and I realized its going to be a longer road to moksha than I anticipated. Its a good thing I'm not really a buddhist because my next life might not be too promising.
 
With regard to my previous comment, shouldn't I be breaking even? My karma points are negative right now.
 
Boid said:
With regard to my previous comment, shouldn't I be breaking even? My karma points are negative right now.
Click to expand...

Each person can earn their own "weight" of their "Karma power". So apparently people with a heavier weight gave you negative karma than those users who gave you positive karma. It is not a simple 1 vote rating system per member. For instance, one member might have a karma power rating of 100, and another might have a power rating of 2. If the one with 100 power gave you negative karma, and the one with the power of 2 gave you positive karma, that would leave you with a rating of -98 karma.

I believe there are threads about the karma system in this particular forum, so if you have questions, perhaps spending some time to look them up might explain things a bit better to you.
 
Thank you for the response Rich. And thank you for keeping the site running and using the name "Fauna Classifieds." I'm glad Bill gave you permission to use the name for the site and it doesn't surprise me that he did so. He's a great person and I still consider him a friend even though we had a bit of a falling out years ago. I like to remember the good times and I think of our differences as water under the bridge. Most real friendships last forever and are made with unbreakable bonds. I used to help Bill and a few other friends collate, fold, and staple the pages together for the original Gillingham publication many, many years ago. After hours and sometimes days of work Bill would send them out in bulk to subscribers across the country and in foreign countries too. He also made an exotic animal directory and a fish directory. I can still remember seeing Trooper Walsh's ad for captive hatched Green Tree Pythons for $700 each. And Terry L. Vandeventer's ad as well as Bob Clark, Tom Crutchfield, and the names other herpers that I now have trouble remembering. Its nice to see familiar names still in the hobby after all these years and watch the hobby continue to grow and evolve, if you will. Thanks again.
 
Yeah, that does bring back some memories. Seems to me I still have some paper copies of Bill's publication around here somewhere. I can remember when I had the site running under the name of HerpWantAds, and I kept on getting people placing ads for animals other than herps. So I figured perhaps changing the name might be a reasonable move to make. Of course, FaunaClassifieds just kept sticking in my mind as the best choice, but I knew that although Bill hadn't published anything under that name in quite a while, he would still ethically retain ownership to it. I was actually surprised when I asked him if I could have the name for a website and he agreed, as I thought for certain he would want to have an online presence himself under that name. I thought that was gracious and generous of him to relinquish the name.

But I will be honest, as little used as the non-herp sections are here, in hindsight I actually wish I had kept the name HerpWantAds and be done with it. All things considered, it would have been the smarter move. I still have the domain name, of course, but not sure attempting to move back to that would be a real wise idea.

Anyway, thanks for bringing this up.

Is Bill doing OK? I hope he is doing well.
 
Fauna Classifieds is a catchy name and I think Bill has a knack for marketing. I haven't spoken to Bill in about 18 years but as far as I know he is OK and is still living in Lodi. I used to see his son Jeff at the gym all the time before he went to college. In one of the last conversations I had with Jeff he told me that his dad had sold the business, that was around 2010 I think. The name "Serpentarium" is still around too but it just isn't the same without the original owner. Bill is one of a kind. I'll reach out to Bill one of these days in the near future just to make peace and catch up. I stayed away from the hobby for a while to focus on school and other interests. For some reason I always wind up going back to the snakes, its almost like I don't have a choice.

Following your advice I have been doing some research into the karma system, talk about opening up a fresh can of worms. I guess it has its pros and cons.
 
I read you loud and clear and I think that I speak for most members when I say that I am with you one hundred percent
 
Boid said:
I read you loud and clear and I think that I speak for most members when I say that I am with you one hundred percent
Click to expand...

I am really not sure how to take that......... :shrug01:
 
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