Status check on health of this site.

[hhmoore]

There is, of course, a difference between face to face and online...sometimes different tactics are necessary. (That does not mean that I don't think there is often an excess of the badgering, taunting, and general BS)

 

[Cat_72]

I agree.

Those with the skill to ferret out scammers do us all a favor.
It is my opinion that people who have taken money from others and who are scammers are thieves and deserve to be outed and identified.

I worked for a while as a nurse in a county jail, and I saw interactions daily between prisoners and deputies. The deputies used strong words and at times when appropriate strong actions.

I did not see baiting or taunting of the prisoners. The deputies used force at times, but not brutality; their words were not always appropriate for a ladies tea party, yet there was no baiting, badgering or taunting.

We have a number of LEOs here, and as well, have a number of people who have served in the military. They now, or in the past, have walked this line daily.
I would like to hear their point of view.

I'm not sure what a county jail has to do with anything, really. Were those deputies responsible for proving the prisoners' guilt or innocence? Was it their job to find out if the prisoners were telling the truth or lying through their teeth and ripping people off? Or was it their job to simply keep order, regardless of the prisoners guilt or innocence?

 

[Lucille]

I'm not sure what a county jail has to do with anything, really. Were those deputies responsible for proving the prisoners' guilt or innocence? Was it their job to find out if the prisoners were telling the truth or lying through their teeth and ripping people off? Or was it their job to simply keep order, regardless of the prisoners guilt or innocence?

Are you saying that if it WAS their responsibility to determine guilt or innocence, that baiting and brutality are justified?
My point is that in many situations, a job can be accomplished without the baiting and taunting that sometimes are used. In whatever situation.

 

[Cat_72]

I'm simply saying that different tasks may call for different measures. Simply keeping the peace is a completely different task than trying to "solve a crime" or determine guilt or innocence, and that the folks participating in BOI threads are not there to simply keep the peace.

 

[Lucille]

I'm simply saying that different tasks may call for different measures. Simply keeping the peace is a completely different task than trying to "solve a crime" or determine guilt or innocence, and that the folks participating in BOI threads are not there to simply keep the peace.

I agree and in fact in my original post specifically mentioned that there are different methods needed when dealing with criminals and at times strong words and actions are justified. It may include some strong and very direct language; but does not have to include page upon page of taunts and badgering.

My original post addressed LEOs and those in the military, groups who may have to use very strong methods as part of their job; and it asked where they draw the line.

 

[Jim O]

Jim so nice to see someone cares enough to search my posts for content. And I thought this whole time I was just typing for fun....


Maybe a search of your last 200 post for just say the BOI sould be in order to determine how well your Photoshop works, or your selection of pronouns.


Am I perfect far from it, do I attack yes. But after spending the summer watching the carnage of the attacks on the BOI and even off the BOI. I finally have become sick of the trend that takes place. So Jim bring up all you want I don't care....A question was asked and like anyone else I have expressed my views on why the counts are down. Am I the perfect example of my words.....NO....yet some of the ones throwing stones need to sweep behind their own back doors.


Love metaphors(even if mixed) what was that one again...POT, KETTLE, BLACK

But Michael dearest, I'm not the one clamoring for change. I think that the current system finds out who the bad guys are. Am I part of that system? Yes, indeed I am. I never claimed that my posts are kinder and gentler, or that such a system would work better, or even as well. You did. So I pointed out your own foibles. I have nothing to sweep from behind my back door. Everyone here knows who and what I am. Do I taunt bad guys? Yes! Do I sometimes attempt humor? Yes! Is it well received? Judging by the in-thread feedback and positive karma it is. Judging by this thread it sometimes is not. I'll take that as a wash at worst. Do bad guys get found out? Yes, they do. Do they sometimes make it right? Yes.



Now the question asked in the very first post in this thread was

Yeah, I know everyone will have their own opinions about this, but my main concern is whether or not the charging for posting classified ads on this site is being the main choking point. I was reluctant from the start to do this, but many people offered this as a suggestion and I felt it was just being hard headed on my part to fight it. No, I am not trying to make a claim as to being right or wrong about this, just simply posting the facts and trying to see what the cards laying on the table are telling me.

Quite simply put, is participation in the classified sections here just a matter of being free, or being dead?

The paid requirement has been running for nearly 8 months now. The question is, IS it wise to continue?

Your "answer" had nothing to do with the questions asked. Ponder that.

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

'Status check on the health of this site'

Rich, are you trying to determine the health of Fauna based soley on the number of site hits? I suppose it could be a double-edged sword, because when the site seems to be running smoothly overall (not a lot of drama and out-of-control threads like this one), the actual post count may be much lower.... but the site itself may actually be more 'healthy'.

 

[The BoidSmith]

If you gargle with cyanide every day you will be sooner or later poisoned even if you spit it out. In the words of Forrest Gump..."That's all I have to say about that..."

Regards,

 

[Wilomn]

lucille, let me address this specifically to you. Anyone who wholeheartedly agrees with you can feel free to include themselves in the little cage I keep my image of you in.

At one time, prior to your being proven a lying manipulating self-grandizing not very nice person, you were ALL for whatever went down on the BOI. Prior to my finally having enough of you, you were one of my number one supporters. Before you realized that the same verve and vigor which was loosed on those I thought bad could be turned on you, who deep down I still think are less than good, you though I was great. You have bragged to me how you could manipulate 99% of the men you know and most of the women to do what you wanted. You were desperate for me to name you as a friend of mine. You, now as then, seem desperate for not only attention, but a leaders role.

You are not suited to it. I think you know that and I also think that you outspokeness here in this thread is mostly to protect YOU should things go south for you AGAIN.

Why do you think YOU need to be the one who sets policy here? Why are you here at all, for that matter?

I RARELY get anyone telling me to lighten up when I'm playing on the BOI. I do get people telling me they appreciate the job I'm doing and find humor in its execution. Funny how JimO says the same yet YOU seem to think that WE should change to suit YOU.

I don't think so.

If there are so many fauna members out there who are too afraid to speak up in any forum yet speak to you, well let's just say that makes me suspicious that any of them exist at all.

Newbs may well be shy but if they read long enough, just a few weeks actually, this subject is brought up and the conclusion is this; post honestly, be ready to be knocked around a bit as we're a rough buy loyal group, and welcome to fauna. However, IF you are a liar, someone here to decieve, to manipulate, to pull the figurative wool over our eyes, be prepared to be flayed in public.

Comparing this to jail is ludicris. You do know that this is the internet, right? In person I could get words out of a person with a look and a shruge that I can only get by other methods here, where there is no visual or physical contact. Your insistance on handicapping what some of us do to make YOU feel safer, fooling others into beileving that you have no ulterior motive, galls me. You ALWAYS have an ulterior motive, most of us do, but yours is always about making you look better.

You may try to talk someone into thinking this is an attack on you but it's not. I'm simply tired, AGAIN, of your manipulation of those who think your sweet schoolmarm/nurse persona is real. Some of us know it's not. Some of us are tired of you fooling newbs. Some of us are tired of you.

You're nobodies friend but your own and you look out for you at the expense of others. I don't like that. I never did. That's why then as well as now I will not call you friend.

Feel free to continue stating your opinion, just I will to state mine, just two members of a website, one a known liar and one not, comparing ways to acheive ends that benefit Fauna.

 

[Lucille]

Wes,

You are welcome to your opinion. You are a control freak and you do come out slinging hash at those who do not admire you. I certainly do not admire the ugliness you choose to display in trying to control me.
I am putting you back on ignore. I thought you had changed and, I admit, I was wrong.

 

[Gary O]

LMAO....Wes and I have not agreed on everything. We have even had words. But I do not find him in the least mean.......................

 

[dsirkle]

To return to the question posed in the begining of this thread, if paid membership as a requirement to advertise here is a bone of contention to some and seen as a hardship to small breeder/hobbiests by others,how about allowing one or two free ads per year for non paid members as a solution? This should boost the number of hits and increase number of animals available for sale. Of course some will object to someone getting a free ad competing with them for sales.Forgive me if this has already been suggested, I didn't read the entire thread.

 

[Cat_72]

Dale, that question was already posed earlier in the thread.

It's really a nice idea in theory, but have you ever looked at the number of registered members here? There's something like 45,000 members total, most of which I would GUESS are not paid members. If even half of those members decided to request their free ads, well.....I don't know exactly what would be involved with dinking around to allow them to post, but I'm sure it would be more than enough to give Rich a full-time job just setting them up to post their ads, more less keeping track of how many they have posted, if they have reached their limit, etc....not to mention the plain old headaches it would cause.

Now, maybe this is something that could somehow be programmed in.....I'm admittedly illiterate when it comes to those things....but I don't know that it would be something worth paying a programmer to take the time to do.

As I said before, it costs what, $25 to get a paid membership? The poster would make that back in his first sale from an ad, and anything after that could be called "free advertising", if you want to look at it that way. I just honestly don't see how $25 could be considered a "hardship".

 

[dsirkle]

I agree that $25 is nothing when you get to post unlimited ads. The idea that I proposed was nothing more than a shot from the hip because Webslave expressed concern over declining usage and others viewed having to pay as unfair to occasional breeders although I myself think that you should be able to squeeze $25 out of a clutch of morphs without any hardship. I am a newbie here and while I have read plenty of old threads I fully realize that the history here is way more than I will ever be able to comprehend.I just threw a dart hoping to hit the bullseye while guessing that since it wasnt exactly a brilliant proposal that I had that it was more than likely already suggested.

 

[Casey Hulse]

We vend at shows monthly, and when someone would come to the show with an animal that none of the vendors cared to purchase/trade, I often told them about Fauna where they could come and post an ad for free. I am sure lots of other vendors did this as well.

 

[Gary O]

Dale, that question was already posed earlier in the thread.

There's something like 45,000 members total,

There is one thing I do want to point out. And this is not me being mean at all. It is just a fact that does need pointed out.

There is not 45K members here. There are many many people that have more then one account. There are some with 3,4 ,5 and even up to 6 or more accounts.

rich himself has 2.

I know that number is awesome and is great looking to post but infact there is less then that many people that joined. It could be becuase of peopleghosting. It could be becuase they forgot the registered. Maybe they just forgot their passwords and no longer have the email used before. Then you also have all the bots that registered there for awhile. I had up to around 200 register in a month on TRR. And my site is not as large as this I can just imagine how many here.

Again this is not a bad thing it is just part of the forum life

 

[The BoidSmith]

Rich,

Quite simply put, is participation in the classified sections here just a matter of being free, or being dead?

What do the rest of the statistics about the site tell you? Is it possible that the decline in participation is just an associative effect related to some other changes made at the time or thereabouts?

You are questioning if something's going wrong with the site. What about what's going wrong outside Fauna? Wether people want to recognize it or not we are going through hard times (I'm trying to avoid the term "recession"). You can check the ads on other sites and you can recognize some names that have been small-time breeders/keepers for several years selling off their stock. And I'm not talking here about the usual "out of business" selling strategy of some, these are for real, with everything going to the best offer.

Yes, an isolated $25 here or an additional $25 there aren't much, but ad them up and they can erode a limited budget. And there are plenty of those around the country nowadays; the foreclosure disaster is not an isolated incident.

Quite simply put, is participation in the classified sections here just a matter of being free, or being dead?

I used to visit the classifieds often; not anymore. Only when an ad that sparks my interest pops up in the "new posts" section. Simply put, they don't offer much incentive (variety) as someone already said, it's the same people over and over.

Then again this is not surprising as it happens in the site overall. Just sort the "posts per day" for all the members and run a graph in Excel of just the first couple of pages. Then tell me then what you see (I have done it already). The bulk of the posters in fauna are approximately 30 individuals. I haven't run one with "posts per day" yet but I don't need to do it to have an idea of who leads the statistics. Does it matter...? Another revealing one would be "last activity"...

The paid requirement has been running for nearly 8 months now. The question is, IS it wise to continue?

In my opinion, no; not because it's the wrong idea but just because times have changed.

Regards,

 

[Cat_72]

There is one thing I do want to point out. And this is not me being mean at all. It is just a fact that does need pointed out.

There is not 45K members here. There are many many people that have more then one account. There are some with 3,4 ,5 and even up to 6 or more accounts.

Yeah, I understand that Gary....that's why I used the scenario of "half of those" requesting their free ad. I explained it better the first time I responded to that question, I think...lol. A very valid point, though.

Still, even if say, a thousand folks asked, it'd still be plenty of work.


The only other fair option I can come up with is simply limiting the amount of ads that comes with each membership level. Registered members get 25 per year, contributing members 50, and so on type of thing. But again, that's more programming, and probably more headaches.

I do have to agree with Dan though, I don't look at the classifieds nearly as much as I used to, a combination of money perhaps being tighter and the holidays coming, the anticipation of the upcoming baby season and the number of my own animals I am planning on holding back, and yeah.....the fact that it's pretty much the same few people posting.

Would removing the fee change that? Maybe.

 

[hhmoore]

I do have to agree with Dan though, I don't look at the classifieds nearly as much as I used to, a combination of money perhaps being tighter and the holidays coming, the anticipation of the upcoming baby season and the number of my own animals I am planning on holding back, and yeah.....the fact that it's pretty much the same few people posting.

Would removing the fee change that? Maybe.

We all have our reasons for not looking. Believe it or not, despite my recent purchases, I have not been looking either (my recent purchases resulted from an email notification, and attending a show & finding the right animal).
BUT, would removing the fee make anybody more likely to browse the ads? Does it matter that it is the same few people posting ads - unless you just don't like those people?
I'll admit that I only purchased a few animals from here when the classifieds were free...but most of them were crap. On two separate occasions, and from two different sellers, I ended up losing much more than I purchased (the first time, I lost everything I had in quarantine; the second cost me the majority of my woma collection plus vet/medication bills...though that would have paid to advertise). Granted, this doesn't mean that people are more likely to get healthy animals - a quick look at the BOI will confirm that - but from personal experience, there seemed to be more crap floating around when it was free.
Free advertising was certainly a draw to a lot of people, and would probably continue to serve that role...but look at it this way. What is the likelihood of seeing anything different from somebody that isn't willing to cough up $25? Will having more ads for baby leopard geckos, cornsnakes, BPs or whatever really increase the traffic considerably? (no offense intended to anybody that breeds those animals - but I think you get my point)

 

[Cat_72]

I agree, Harald. I guess it may be better stated that it's pretty much always the same animals, from the same people....or to some extent people I choose not to purchase from. If there were a greater selection, I may browse more often, but as I said, it's a combination of factors keeping me from browsing at this point.

I don't know that it would make any difference in the traffic if the fee were removed.......or if the animals offered would be of any different quality, though I have made good purchases from the classifieds in the past. Granted, I'm very selective who I buy from....and I do recall seeing more crap ads when they were free. But I think there were more good ads as well, so....

I just don't think there's any way to answer the question with any certainty. I can see both sides of the coin, and don't know which side is up, lol.