Where am I going wrong with this site?

[Matt Haines]

I also find it hard to visit here with the newly formed confusion/instability. While i agree completely with most of the new changes and trying to "clean up" the site so to speak, I find it hard for anyone to see the fear caused by the overzealous pursuit of this goal anything but detrimental to the community. I truly hope that the intention is honest because I do not think the number of hits versus number of members should be looked at as some sort of warning. It took me 2-3 years before joining and posting alongside other members rather than being a lurker. It was never because I was afraid of being ripped apart or be unwelcomed by the pack.

Inevitably it is what it is, and for what's it's worth I understand your feeling a need to strengthen the community by shortening the leash, there is such a thing as taking it too far. I for one do not see the current enforcement guideline as one that will garner any more members or help retain any either. It's sort of like hammering a nail with a 10 pound sledge. Does it get the job done? Why sure it does but that which you are trying to build will be worse for the wear.

 

[Wilomn]

Let's look at it this way for a minute.

It's sort of like a relationship, the way most of us feel about Fauna. It's a surrogate boyfriend/girlfriend or husband/wife or just good friend. It's someone a lot of us have spent a lot of time getting to know.

Sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's not.

What do you do when it's not?

This is a flux that needs to be dealt with not given up on.

Just because Rich is being unreasonable today doesn't me he'll still be unreasonable tomorrow or next week.

Here's the thing though. NONE of us, as individuals are REALLY important. In a few months if there are no posts made by someone they are a distant memory. In a year or so no one but a few of the Old Guard will even know rumors of them.

It's only as a group that this site will stay alive. What the group is made up of will ALWAYS be changing. Different points of view and personalities will start posting and a newbie matures into an oldie and everything goes merrily along with no one caring much less remembering the "change" that hit late in 05.

As important as all of this seems and as much of an uproar it seems to be causing, it's not even a ripple in Does It Count Pond, because in reality, it doesn't.

Many of us SAY we would do things differently and some of us definately WOULD do things differently. So? Welcome to the world.

It seems that Rich has been as clear as he's willing or able to be, it's got to be one or the other but frankly I'm stumped as to which it is, and we either ride out the storm, or sink.

I hate sinking but I don't like the feel of the water. It's not that I mind being hunted so much it's just that in this case if I take out the hunter(s) it may well cost my this very site.

Well, like I said somewhere else, it's a VERY interesting can of worms. Very interesting indeed.

 

[WebSlave]

Well I am sorry if some of you just cannot figure out how to post in a manner that is not derogatory or antagonistic towards someone else. THAT is what this is all about. The person to person attacks are what is going to be cleaned up. Is that really all that difficult to figure out? How in the world can that cause confusion? How does the requirement to post in a responsible mature adult manner baffle some people? Is you entire life so filled with strife and a combative nature that you don't know how to post any other way?

As far as I can tell, EVERYTHING someone needs to know about the rules of the road are listed both in the thread on the BOI (http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8880), and the list of warning options (http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/warn.php?). As long as you are familiar with these two pages, then I don't see where you are going to have any problem. If you are NOT familiar with them, then I guess it is time that you do so.

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

Just because Rich is being unreasonable today doesn't me he'll still be unreasonable tomorrow or next week.

Hmmmm...

 

[WebSlave]

I guess "unreasonableness" is a matter of perspective. I am sure a mosquito thinks you are being unreasonable when you swat it after landing on your arm. I am sure a tick thinks you are unreasonable when you pluck it off of your neck. And I guess a mouse believes you are being unreasonable when you decide you don't want it living underneath your refrigerator. And I guess some members here are going to think I am being unreasonable when I state emphatically that I am not putting up with their crap on this site any longer.

So sure, call me "unreasonable" all you want. But watch the tone you use, please. Otherwise my unreasonable actions may directly affect YOU.

 

[critical bill]

What a perfect song....

Lunatic Fringe
I know you're out there
You're in hiding
And you hold your meetings
We can hear you coming
We know what you're after
We're wise to you this time
We won't let you kill the laughter

Lunatic Fringe
In the twilight's last gleaming
This is open season
But you won't get too far
We know you've got to blame someone
For your own confusion
But we're on guard this time
Against your final solution

We can hear you coming
(We can hear you coming)
No you're not going to win this time
We can hear the footsteps
(We can hear the footsteps)
Way out along the walkway
Lunatic Fringe
We know you're out there
But in these new dark ages
There will still be light

An eye for an eye
Well, before you go under
Can you feel the resistance
Can you feel the...thunder

 

[Wilomn]

It's a fine line you tread as well Rich. You're well liked and respected right now, even by me and that's not something many can say, as if you care but nonetheless, you really need to be careful how you swat those mosquitos and pick them ticks and as far as the mouse goes, aren't you metaphorically doing that very thing now, cleaning under your "fridge", which SHOULD, in theory, rid you of the mouse problem, but you may well get rid of some of the benificial symbiotes that live here as well. When you're not being "unreasonable" I think you sort of like some of the very posts that you are now discouraging so well.

I know I know, if it's time it's time. But I am just offering a word of well meant caution. What you do in the next couple of weeks is going to be how folks remember you for the next quite-a-while.

As you say, you WILL do what is necessary. I say some of the acrimony may not be as necessary as you seem to be making it.

 

[Serpwidgets]

There wouldn't be any improper use of the signature area if your programmer could make it impossible for there to be more than 4 lines when entering it on the user CP.

I think this idea is great for both boards. Especially where people come on, learn about the "1.2.3" stuff and in their enthusiasm want to put their 500 animals (one per line) in their signature.

The following function accepts a string, truncates it to 200 characters or at the 4th line break if it exceeds either of these , and then returns the "corrected" string.

It would go into http://www.faunaorcornsnakes.com/forums/profile.php
where it handles (do==updatesignature) and
(SaveSignature and/or PreviewSignature) and needs to be called once, preferrably before the signature string is otherwise parsed. (Or it could just be inlined.)

function LimitSig($sig)
{
   $maxchars=200; //max length of sig
   $maxlines=4; //max number of lines in sig
   $sigout="";
   $numlines=1;
   $notdone=true;
   $x=0;
   while(($x<$maxchars) && ($x<strlen($sig)) && ($notdone))
   {
       $char = substr($sig,$x,1);
       $charNum = ord($char);
       if($charNum==13)
       {
           $numlines++;
           if ($numlines>$maxlines) 
           {
              $notdone = false;
              $x--;
           }
       }
       $x++;
   }
   $sigout=substr($sig,0,$x);
   return $sigout;
}

 

[Rebel Dragons]

Ok, after reading and reading I answered my own question.

 

[g&mgeckos]

First off let say Rich I have really enjoyed your site. I have found tons of valuable information through the members of our comunity. And I think that is what you intended it to be. Now with that being said I will go into some of the other issues at hand.

First off I think your right about alot. There is alot of negativity going around. It even pushed me away from the site for a while. Then I slowly have started coming back. Not to long ago I recieved my first warning point. And I will be the first to tell you it pissed me off. For several reason

1. It was a mistake on my part. I guess I get that tunnel vision when I come here and never really notice the forum on web sites.

2. At the same time I got my warning there was two other threads that were out of their proper area right next to mine. This lead me to wonder if I pissed you off that bad with the R2Reptile Gecko post I made.

3. I emailed a response to you and I thought I was very polite even though I was pissed. But no response came back from you. I wasn't asking for you to remove the warning but to not even be acknowledged was a little distrubing.

4. It wasn't the first time I had asked for feedback on my site and nobody said anything then or pointed me in the right direction. And after you moved my thread I got no more responses and no more feed back.

Now with that out this is what I have realized since getting that warning point.

1. I can't really exspect you or the mods to catch every little thing. You are human after all and have a life outside of this site. That I understand and respect. I was wrong and had it coming.

2. The site is much bigger than just the couple of forums I go to regularly. That is how I found this thread.

Reading through this very long thread as made it more acceptable for me and I understand it better now. But I think it would help if you would have responed to my PM. I think you are on the right track Rich for the most part as I said earlier one of the big reason I started going to another site was the negativity that is very present here most of the time. Not just by members but by yourself too. I do understand yours is coming from frustration and I mean nothing personal. I am just saying what I see as a new member of this community.

 

[WebSlave]

Glenn,

For the most part, I just do not reply to the "why did I get a warning point" types of queries any longer. My feelings on that are that the warning system is pretty self explanatory to most people, and with a few exceptions, is just a reflection of what I consider to be common courtesy for this site. The minor warnings are supposed to be just that: Warnings. Meaning you have gotten a warning that some type of activity you are engaging in is not acceptable on this site and you are being requested to stop. This is about as gentle and yet effective manner that I think is reasonable to try to get the point across. I don't think it is unreasonable to expect most new members to get at least 3 or 4 minor warning points before they finally settle in the groove.

When you get to 10 of those minor warnings, however, then the rules change. I felt that anyone who gets even one warning point is likely to try to investigate the situation to see what are considered as infractions on this site. Yeah, I know I need to make a site wide TOS, but it's just tough to find the time to do everything I am expected to do. But anyone OVER 10 points is, in my opinion, having a real problem adapting to this site, and perhaps the rules here make it so that they are having problems fitting in with what I consider to be acceptable behavior here. So the warning becomes MUCH stronger in an effort to try to get the point across.

This is NOT my full time job. Far from it. So I have to give my real business (that which puts food on my table) my top priority. Yes this site is now doing fairly well financially with advertisements and memberships, but it is still a long way from paying back the money I have sunk into it to get it functional and established, much less be in any kind of a position to make me think it will be a real "money maker" for me. So I have to keep this all in perspective. I have no incentive to spend 40 hours per day here reading posts, answering emails and PMs, and generally just being an active presence. I turn on the computer each morning, and generally have a window open on this site until such time that I shut down the computer for the night. But I am certainly not sitting in front of the computer all day long, as I have other work to do that needs to get done.

Yep, sometimes I get REAL frustrated here. Sometimes, even with my best efforts, it shows through blindingly in my posts. Like everyone else, what is said is said, and I just leave it after posting it. Even so, I think this site has been a supreme test of my self control. It would have been extremely satisfying and fulfilling to just ban the people who seem hell bent to just piss me off (either accidentally or intentionally). But I have, I think, been rather patient and lenient in that regard. However, I think I am a whole lot less lenient now then I was a while back. A while back my wife and I were talking to a girl who runs a local nursery about workers. She was pretty much down to earth and matter of fact about hiring and firing people, and if someone didn't seem to be working out, they got booted out the door pretty quickly. As she put it "Life is too short to have to put up with arseholes if you are not required to." So yeah, I'm leaning more and more in that direction with the way I administer this site as well. I REALLY don't have to put up with anyone here whom I really don't want to. I will give someone the benefit of the doubt, but not for long.

My expectations always have been high for my fellow human beings. I expect a lot out of people, but lately I expect less then I used to. When I first started the BOI on my HerpWantAds.com site, the set of rules I made was based on the fact that I mistakenly thought that everyone would act like professionals, adults, and functionally mature personalities, righteously motivated in their postings, making rules basically superfluous. So why would a huge string of what I thought were common sense rules be even necessary with such people? Yeah, live and learn, I guess. And it became obvious to me, that what I had hoped for just wasn't coming to pass.

The warning system was originally set up to be just that; a manner for myself and the moderators to easily contact a member about a problem post, have everything spelled out plainly to let them know what they did wrong, PLUS it left an audit trail for everyone to see, about how we were enforcing the rules of the road here. That audit trail helped to keep US honest and above board, knowing that our actions were plainly visible to everyone. My thought was that all members seeing other members getting those warnings would prompt most people to investigate what was expected and allowed on this site where they were itemized in the warning system itself.

Is everyone going to agree on mine and my moderators interpretations of what constitutes a violation of courtesy on this site? Of course not. That point has been driven home to me, in spades. People do get pissed off when they get even a minor warning point. To them, it's a black mark on their reputation. To me, having a warning point for something minor like not using your full name, posting in the wrong forum, etc., is nothing. It just means you made a mistake in protocol. But obviously other people see it differently, sometimes dramatically so. However, even with all it's warts, I really can't think of any way to do this in any other effective, practical, and efficient manner. In some respects, particularly because of some of the animosity it generates, I would like to get rid of the warning system completely. But realistically I can't. It fills the need for too many things that I need to have on this site to manage it effectively.

Anyway, Glenn, back to your original complaint about my not responding to your query about the warning point, I mentioned that I had stopped replying to such things. The reason I have done that is because in about 80 percent of the time, when someone gets one of the more severe warning points, they are already off the deep end with their posting. When they got a warning notice for doing so, they tended to redirect their anger towards me. There is no negotiating the warning point, and no real reason for me to get into a pissing match with them. All they want at that point is someone to fight with, and I just gave them a new target. I decided that I don't need to put myself into that position. So I just ignore those queries to keep myself out of fighing with yet someone else.

Anyway, I do recognize that I sometimes get rather blunt with my posts, and I can get short of patience. I try not to let some people get me worked into a state of frustration and anger, but sometimes I fail. In the process of trying to make everyone here act better, I am trying to do the same myself, but sometimes I just have too many balls to juggle at one time. Problem is, that in order to get tough to bring this site back into line, it certainly will not appear that I am in any way being lenient, patient, or kind to those people who I will have to crack down on. My hopes are that those people who CAN participate here in a professional and reasonable manner, will do so. Those who can't, well, their days are numbered on this site. The harsher fine and suspension penalty now gives them the excuse they need to not come back. The choice is simple for them, and easy for me to administer.

 

[g&mgeckos]

Glenn,



Anyway, Glenn, back to your original complaint about my not responding to your query about the warning point, I mentioned that I had stopped replying to such things. The reason I have done that is because in about 80 percent of the time, when someone gets one of the more severe warning points, they are already off the deep end with their posting. When they got a warning notice for doing so, they tended to redirect their anger towards me. There is no negotiating the warning point, and no real reason for me to get into a pissing match with them. All they want at that point is someone to fight with, and I just gave them a new target. I decided that I don't need to put myself into that position. So I just ignore those queries to keep myself out of fighing with yet someone else.

Anyway, I do recognize that I sometimes get rather blunt with my posts, and I can get short of patience. I try not to let some people get me worked into a state of frustration and anger, but sometimes I fail. In the process of trying to make everyone here act better, I am trying to do the same myself, but sometimes I just have too many balls to juggle at one time. Problem is, that in order to get tough to bring this site back into line, it certainly will not appear that I am in any way being lenient, patient, or kind to those people who I will have to crack down on. My hopes are that those people who CAN participate here in a professional and reasonable manner, will do so. Those who can't, well, their days are numbered on this site. The harsher fine and suspension penalty now gives them the excuse they need to not come back. The choice is simple for them, and easy for me to administer.

This I totally understand Rich. And as I said I was pissed off at first but I am not any longer. After reading through this long thread I think I understand where you are coming from alot better than I once did. I did look at the warning points as a backmark and prided myself in not having any. But I understand why I received mine and understand now why it appeared that I was being singled out at the time. Also as mentioned before I think you are on the right track we needed some sort of overhauling. I for one just do not like the pissing wars or negative threads I have seen become all to common as of late. I think its fine to have fun and cut up a little but not at the expense of others. I think that kind of activity will do nothing in the end but hurt the site. Their is two other forums I frequent and I see several members I see here there also but the negativity is not there. So I think it says in volumes what must be done here to get it back on track. If that means me getting a warning point to get to that point so be it. It is a WELCOMED change! Glenn

 

[crazydart]

Have you figured out your target market???

I am not about to read all of the other pages of this thread, but here is my 2 cents. I am sure you know who your target market is... but do you know who they ARE. First off, you have a ton registered, and few come back... so WHY are they comming? I think its safe to say they are comming for the BOI and classifieds. So why are the forums (and please this is just IMHO, I am a paying member too) only seeing the same regulars? Why do I not use the forums here and use them on another site insted??? Well first off I cant find the one I want very easy. Take this constructively... the navigation here SUCKS. I design websites too, and if I made a site with navigation like this I would fire my self. If I want to go to the ball python forum on kingsnake, I click forums, and then I go to the big black and white "Snake Forums" and find "Ball Pythons". Here I click Forum Map (I know what that is, but you have just lost most people already) then I get this giant list of forums, which would be ok, except every main cat starts with "Reptile & Amphibian -"... VERY hard for me to scan and find the section I am looking for. Try a table with a BLACK border and a BOLD title that gets to the point. Then I scan past all the garbage and find the word Ball Pythons (or what ever I was looking for) and I see that its a classifieds section... why is a classifieds section in the forums section??? I think you need 3 distinct areas.. BOI, Classifieds, and Forums. So I go on down the HUGE list... now I get to Reptile & Amphibian - General Discusion forums... now I have to read every cat to figure out if the one I want is there... ok its not... I go on... ok finally in the next section I find what I am looking for, but it just all kinda bleeds togeather, so if I am a regular I have a link, but before I get to that point, I have to navigate each time... not fun.

I say once you click forums, then you have a list of main forums and then it goes to subforums... also would it hurt to have a popular forums advert at the top of the page?? Nuff said... I like the site, but I am trying to help. My kingsnake account is "expired" forever because I publically told Kevin of NERD (one of kingsnake.com's better advertisers) I thought he was unethical and questioned how he took care of his snakes. It was a good thread and ALOT of people responded the same way... I just happened to have picked the fight I have another account (and can have as many as I work for a webhosting company, I can have MANY email addresses, and many IP addresses)... but anyhow I rather dislike how that situation was handled and think kevin's account should have been removed as well for the same exact reasons that we will not get into.

On to the next rant... I dont even know if you are still reading... once you get to the forum you like I dont care for how it works... on kingsnake (yes I will use it as an example because I like it and its seems to be very well liked... I wouldnt blame you for removing this post after you read it... I would) once someone starts a thread it keeps in line... once someone posts, it will not move up (I find it moving to the top VERY anoying) this will force people to keep checking and make responces faster. You can also see who and when and to what part of the thread the responded once someone does. Well, I am done. I hope you found this usefull in some way.

Ben

 

[crazydart]

hmmm, I derailed...

I derail sometimes... so about that target market... have strong areas, but WHERE is the marketing??? if you search on google, I dont even see you!! search "ball pythons" or "reptile forum" or many others, I see one site come up EVERY time... kingsnake.com... that might tell you something. I know advertising takes money, but it takes money to make money. Get an overture account... advertise... then charge for people to advertise here... charge to let them post to the classifieds... or atleast a premuim classified listing. Go find some big breeders of ball pythons and offer them some free services... SURF THE BALL PYTHON MARKET WAVE!!!

And have a merry christmas.

 

[WebSlave]

Ben,

Thanks for the thoughts. Honestly I have tried all kinds of formats with this site, and invariably some subset of the people here won't like it. I did try the top-down approach with a cascading tree structure starting with the high levels and allowing people to drill down to the exact forum they wanted, from simplest to more complex, but many people did not like the number of clicks required to get to where they wanted to go. The issue here was if they went to the Ball Python forum and then wanted to go to the Leopard Gecko forum, it was a pain in the butt to climb back up the tree to the level where they could jump over to the correct branch, then drill back down. THEY wanted to have all forums immediately visible and accessible from the main forum page. In effect, LITTLE or NO branching whatsoever. It is not pleasing from a technical standpoint, but we are not dealing with a large proportion of technically proficient members here who want that sort of complexity.

Actually I believe (maybe incorrectly) that most people come to the main forums page (http://www/faunaclassifieds.com/forums) as their launching point on this site and from there, you can get just about anywhere on this site with two clicks of the mouse or less. From what I understood when I changed to the format you now see, THAT is what people said they wanted most for simplicity purposes. So that is what I gave them, and what you now see here.

Does it make a complicated page in the sense that it is BIG and requires scrolling to see it all? Why yes, I guess it does for some people. But quite honestly, all they have to do is to read what is before them and scroll down to where they want to be and click the link. This is about the simplest form of navigation structure you can present to someone, but they do have to make the effort to actually read what is there to find what they want.

The forum map page was one that I actually paid a programmer to do for me when I had the more complicated structure prior to this one. It was about 4 levels deep, and although I did like that structure for the technical manner in which forums were presented to a viewer, it just was not popular. The forum map really isn't necessary now, but heck, I paid for it so I might as well keep it around.

The site is actually somewhat logically laid out, believe it or not, but unfortunately not everyone has he same sort of logic, I guess. There were actually some routines put into place that required that I name forums and categories in a specific way to make those routines work properly. And yes, some things have changed or expanded over time that maybe need to be restructured a bit. For instance, is the Shipping forum really pertinent to being only in the Reptiles and Amphibians section when it should apply to all fauna groups? But how many people would then complain that nearly 99 percent of the posts made there are only about reptiles and amphibians, so it really should be there? So then I am faced with the dilemma of maybe having to further complicate this site by putting in ANOTHER shipping forum to cover the other fauna groups.

As for the classifieds sections being in a forum section, first off, in one area those "forums" are actually active links to the classified section so people can find them immediately from the front page without having to drill down a step to find them. This was a necessity to make them easier to locate. There is another section composed of the older archived classifieds because initially the classifieds actually WERE forum based and not the tied in routine (pp_classifieds) I now use. I had initially planned to delete them, however I was quite surprised to find that they still show up in many search engines and many people are drawn to this site through those links. Although the ads are no longer valid, they serve well as a method to get people to this site via those search engines, so I do believe it is in everyone's best interests that I do keep them here.

Personally, I really can't understand why you would have trouble finding the ball python discussion forum. Perhaps I am just more used to this structure then you are, but it just takes a quick scan down the forum listing and then one click and I am there. With anything there is a learning curve involved and this site is no exception, I guess. Just because someone may be used to another site's particular forum doesn't mean that everyone should need to, much less want to, copy it. I am sure that personal preferences will be all over the map on this kind of issue, depending on what they first learned from when coming into the net. Older hands at this cut their teeth on the usenet groups which were solely the original old styling of threaded/subthreaded forums. That is certainly what I learned from, but I can't honestly say I liked it much, even though my own first forums were of that design as well. The reason I used them back then was because there was simply nothing better to choose from. Times change, however........

As for the comment about the way threads percolate to the top when a reply is made, I believe overwhelmingly I heard that most people preferred that method. Personally, I used to use the static threaded method of message board programs for years, and quite frankly, I don't like it. A thread can break off into countless numbers of sub-threads and it is a real pain in the butt trying to keep a chronological grasp of the replies taking place. This would be extremely irritating within the BOI when multiple concurrent arguments or discussions would take place all originating within a single thread and then spreading out like a wildfire. It would be virtually impossible for anyone to follow all of the concurrent sub threads that were being spawned. No, sorry, but I much prefer the current method of a strictly chronological display of replies made to a thread. In my opinion, it is just a much cleaner and more intuitive way for people to follow a conversation.

BTW, that being said, did you know that you can set this forum up to be viewed in that threaded/sub-threaded style layout? It's an option within your User CP Options.

The simple fact that a thread percolates up to the top when replied to is a Godsend, in my opinion. It allows people to instantly know that an older thread has been revived and is reopened for further discussion. Try this with a threaded/subthreaded display where the thread you want to revive is down on page 10. Guess how many people will see that you are trying to revive and older conversation? Probably none. People just aren't inclined to read back through that old stuff. Matter of fact, I do frequent a couple of message board using that style and it is a real pain in the butt when I see some thread of interest. I know there is no sense in replying to it, because my post just will not be seen by anyone. So when you are faced with a message board of the threaded/subthreaded style and want to bring up a topic that was being discussed 10 pages ago,what do you do? Why you start yet another new thread about this same topic. THAT is exactly what I am trying to avoid with this style of message board. Information can be easily found via the search engine here, and when found in a thread, anyone can revive it to ask for more details, or expand on something in it that they may have more questions about. It brings that old thread back to the top where everyone can see that it is now again active. This is how this site was designed to work. Threaded designs are old technology, quite honestly, and I just prefer working with better designs, in my opinion.

As for search engine (Google) results from advertising, I've been there and done that. I was paying a LOT of money for sponsored links through google and Overture (now Yahoo). But you know what? I analyzed the results and even though those 10 to 30 cent per clicks were bringing some people to the site (figure out what 2,000 to 5,000 clicks per day would cost you at those rates, btw, and see what sort of monthly bills I was having to pay!), the number of registrations NEVER changed when I turned that click spigot on or off. NOT ONCE. So why in the world should I keep throwing that kind of money at advertising that really wasn't gaining this site much at all? Yeah, I got more hits per day, but the COST just did not justify the results (or lack thereof). Oh and about Google search engine displays, well it all depends on how you select your keywords. Try "Ball Python Discussions" and see what you get.

Sorry, but this site is broader in scope then just Ball Pythons, and I have no reason nor intention to focus on them. Heck, Cornsnakes are my primary animal and I don't even try to focus on them here. This site covers ALL branches of FAUNA, which is an additional complication in the structure I need to use. If I had kept this site as HerpWantAds.com, as I had originally set it up, then things would maybe be a bit different. But maybe not. One of the main reasons I switched from HerpWantAds to FaunaClassifieds was because I was getting a bunch of ads that were NOT herps anyway, so there appeared to be reason enough to expand the focus of this site anyway. Rather then just throw extra forums on HerpWantAds, I felt that a website name that better fit what it was being designed to cover was a better choice to make.

And no, I don't just delete posts made by people when it is something that I might not want to hear, or they just disagree with me. That is not the way I do things. Anyone can say what they want in the way of criticism and suggestions and I will try to do what I can to either comply with what they want, or explain why it is that I cannot do it that way. At least not yet. I really doubt I have thought of every angle to things here, but darn, I have been thinking about this for a REALLY LONG time, and although I doubt I have covered them all, I think a good chunk of the possible ideas have floated through my brain at one time or another. I really would appreciate people giving me ideas I haven't thought of before, and certainly they have to be out there somewhere. But honestly, I have gotten my toes fried more then once when people took my NOT following their advice as a snubbing and not just my deciding that their advice was not in the best interests of this site.

Thanks.

 

[SmokyMtnReptiles]

Classifieds

Hello Rich, I voted for the new style classifieds but hate them now...it used to be so easy to track new ads...also seemed to have more pep than it does now...I still check them daily, but before the change it seemed like there were many more ads placed than now. so...I change my vote lol



Kevin DeBusk

 

[WebSlave]

Hello Rich, I voted for the new style classifieds but hate them now...it used to be so easy to track new ads...also seemed to have more pep than it does now...I still check them daily, but before the change it seemed like there were many more ads placed than now. so...I change my vote lol



Kevin DeBusk

Yeah, story or my life. The new classifieds fixed some real problems people had and made some things easier, and others harder.

Why can't you track new ads? There is a link there to display all ads placed in the past day? Doesn't that work for you?

What do you mean by "pep"?

 

[KathyLove]

Actually, I do find the site a bit difficult to navigate.

Since I am mostly into corns, of course I go to cornsnakes.com for the discussion. The other forums are not too important to me, although I might sneak a peek now and then. So I come here mostly for the BOI. But for awhile after you changed this site around, I thought you had ditched the discussion forums because I only saw the classified sections. But that is because I bookmark the BOI, arriving there first, and looking at anything else from there. So I only notice items under the Business classification, unless I back out to the broader area from there. When I have gone to the broader classifications, I have gotten a couple of different pages that seem to be welcoming me to the site.

Admittedly, I don't spend much time here compared to cornsnakes.com. So I will probably never get totally familiar with the whole site (it is huge!). But if the BOI is still the main draw, perhaps it would be helpful to somehow design access to other important features / forums, so that they are easy to find from the BOI.

 

[WebSlave]

Actually, I do find the site a bit difficult to navigate.

Since I am mostly into corns, of course I go to cornsnakes.com for the discussion. The other forums are not too important to me, although I might sneak a peek now and then. So I come here mostly for the BOI. But for awhile after you changed this site around, I thought you had ditched the discussion forums because I only saw the classified sections. But that is because I bookmark the BOI, arriving there first, and looking at anything else from there. So I only notice items under the Business classification, unless I back out to the broader area from there. When I have gone to the broader classifications, I have gotten a couple of different pages that seem to be welcoming me to the site.

Admittedly, I don't spend much time here compared to cornsnakes.com. So I will probably never get totally familiar with the whole site (it is huge!). But if the BOI is still the main draw, perhaps it would be helpful to somehow design access to other important features / forums, so that they are easy to find from the BOI.

Well, actually from any page on this site, all anyone really needs to do is to click on the link at the top of the page that says Forum Map and that will present them with a listing of ALL forums on the site. From there any other forum on this entire site is only a single click away.

Is there another method that would work better?

 

[SmokyMtnReptiles]

pep

Before at a glance I could see who was last to post within a section without having to click on the section...I visit this site at least ten times a day lol looking for a deal and I just miss the old way...I also dis-like not being able to respond to classified ads listed for the public to see, I do see how that was a problem but it kept sellers honest, at least about what they were selling.






Kevin DeBusk