we should add regional threads

[rlapointe]

i think there should be a regionals thread on here for people who are looking for local sales and not willing to ship. it would make it alot easier on alot of people i think not having to go around and look at where each person is from. the carclub im apart of has 700,000 members and we have a regionals section that makes things 1000 times better

 

[Mooing Tricycle]

actually a cool idea.

 

[rlapointe]

thanks...it would save so much effort on the hey will ship here..oops local sale only stuff..and it will provide face to face contact and give more buyer satisfaction because they will be able to inspect the animal on a first hand basis rather than going off pictures you can hold what you want to buy before you buy it!

 

[WebSlave]

Well, there are two differences here with this site and that carclub site you reference. (1) We don't have anywhere NEAR 700,000 members here, and (2) the issues with shipping the merchandise on this site is completely different from shipping automobiles. Shipping an automobile across country can cost you in the neighborhood of $1K, yet with animals and most hard goods here, you are talking about less than $75 in nearly all cases. And with the options now available for anyone to be able to ship nearly any type of animal that they want to, there really is no overwhelming excuse for anyone who seriously wants to be in this business to be NOT willing or able to ship their merchandise. Quite frankly, if you want to be in this business, make your target marketplace broad enough so that you CAN be in business.

Not saying I won't entertain this sort of idea in the future, but at the traffic levels we are now seeing, I can't see it being worth the programming effort and expense to implement. Not to mention the additional complication of the forum structure it would necessitate.

But thanks for the suggestion.........

 

[rlapointe]

we dont use it for shipping cars its used for car parts most of the time its small things that cost alot less to ship than animals. and you know how much it would cost to ship my redtail? when i got it it was close to 250 in shipping because its so big and weighed so much..lucky i didnt have to pay for it. but its shipping costs that turns people away. and im familiar with v bulletin it shouldnt take more than 30 min to add a regionals section. if this was a php forums id understand it wouldnt take much to add it

 

[WebSlave]

we dont use it for shipping cars its used for car parts most of the time its small things that cost alot less to ship than animals. and you know how much it would cost to ship my redtail? when i got it it was close to 250 in shipping because its so big and weighed so much..lucky i didnt have to pay for it. but its shipping costs that turns people away. and im familiar with v bulletin it shouldnt take more than 30 min to add a regionals section. if this was a php forums id understand it wouldnt take much to add it

OK, tell me how you would implement this regionals section and we'll discuss it.

 

[rlapointe]

OK, tell me how you would implement this regionals section and we'll discuss it.

i would put it under reptiles/amphibians then make a new sub forums under other for sale and wanted ads. call it regional and inside that sub forum have threads titled

New England
Tri-State/Mid atlantic
South East
Mid West
South
South West
North West
Cali
Rocky Mountains

you could add sections or merg them together more but thats a basic set up. the way its set up on the vwvortex is

New England
Tri-State
Mid atlantic
Capital Area
South East
Mid West
South
Nevada and Utah
South West
Pacific Northwest
NorCal
SoCal
Rocky Mountains

 

[rlapointe]

Only post local FS stuff here, including a price
Once it sells, please delete your post
You must include a price!
NO posting replies in here... IM, or e-mail the seller
(any replies will be deleted immediately w/o any explination NO EXCEPTIONS)
NO more maybe or "feeler" FS posts. Either it is, or it isn't, decide BEFORE posting!

these are the rules for our regionals so something like this should be used in the rules section here. this is the link to one of your regionals so you can see how it works

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=4458344&page=1

 

[shrap]

Hey Rich, wouldnt the Social Groups work for something like this?

Maine Buyers and Sellers Group...

Just a thought.

 

[WebSlave]

i would put it under reptiles/amphibians then make a new sub forums under other for sale and wanted ads. call it regional and inside that sub forum have threads titled

New England
Tri-State/Mid atlantic
South East
Mid West
South
South West
North West
Cali
Rocky Mountains

you could add sections or merg them together more but thats a basic set up. the way its set up on the vwvortex is

New England
Tri-State
Mid atlantic
Capital Area
South East
Mid West
South
Nevada and Utah
South West
Pacific Northwest
NorCal
SoCal
Rocky Mountains

I think perhaps we are talking about two different things here. I went and looked at that VW forum site, and it appears to me that the regional section there is not targeted for sales and trades of merchandise, but instead just generic forums for ALL topics of a regional slant. I can see some benefits of doing that here, but honestly there would then be some more confusion about which forum is actually the most appropriate for topic matter. So the result could very well be a lot of duplication of posts in multiple forums.

For instance, if someone wanted to post about a show in Tampa, FL, would they not be inclined to post that event in both the regional forum AND the Shows and Events forum? If someone wants to ask questions about their leopard gecko, perhaps they want someone locally to help out AND they want a broader audience of the gecko discussion forum (hah!) as well. See what I mean?

Now having regional sections solely for the classifieds poses it's own set of problems. Would it be really of any benefit to have just broad regional forums within the classifieds category where anything and everything could be posted that is FOR SALE or WANTED only in that particular region? Say you had a forum for SouthEast. And in that forum would be boas, ball pythons, corn snakes, tree frogs, tortoises, leopard geckos, etc., etc... Would that really help anyone? Not to mention that anyone posting say a ball python for sale, even for a regional offering, would likely want to post that same ad in both the SouthEast regional forum as well as the regular Ball Python classified forum.

So the next suggestion would be then to break down each regional forum (or more accurately make them actual CATEGORIES) into separate subforums with each type of animal headlined. Which would increase the number of forums here dramatically.

I expect the complaints I would hear (which will be inevitable) is that the additional forums made the site substantially more complicated to navigate in order to post the classified ads as well as find them to read.

Yeah, something like this could be a real boon to get higher post counts for this site, but I think the actual utility of the site might suffer a bit. There ARE people trying to use this site that are suitably confused about how to do so even in it's present state. You have no idea how many emails I get from people who want to know how they post an ad in the classifieds. They haven't even figured THAT out yet. So I believe making it even more complicated may not only increase the number of emails I get every day, but could quite likely baffle many people to the point of just leaving here in frustration and not being able to figure out anything at all.

Yeah, unfortunately some design decisions have to use the "least common denominator" methodology. Personally I love complex systems and complicated programming bells and whistles. But I sometimes have to slap myself around to bring myself back to the ground and realize that I am not designing this site to be an interesting and bedazzling place for me and me alone. It has to actually be USEABLE to the majority of the people I want to frequent it, otherwise this will become a really great place for me to spend my time just talking to myself....

Now, with all that being said, there may actually be a way around this problem by using prefixes for each thread, that bypasses the complications indicated above. Yes, I just NOW thought of this... I believe that I can use multiple prefixes for any forum here, which would allow anyone wanting to, to simply set the display filter for that prefix of regions, and display ONLY those threads that apply.

Of course, that puts the burden on the person posting the classified ads to USE that function, but at this preliminary thinking stage, this is at least a feasible solution to this "problem".

 

[Ed Clark]

The current format has worked well for ages, why complicate things?

There are benefits to browsing a forum looking at all available animals at 1 time. the local pick up is nice, but almost never happens. a $40.00 shipping charge is not going to stop anyone from buying a herp.