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Just my two cents.
I don’t think it is a good idea to limit the number of photos to only 4 in a sales thread, considering many members sell more than that at a time. With some members selling 10-20, sometimes more items at the same time, to just say, ‘make a new thread for every 4 images’ really doesn’t help the searchability of the Flea Market section at all. This isn’t craigslist and I don’t find it very easy to search. It’s way too segmented, so I seldom use it. Also, on craigslist, people commonly only sell a couple of items at a time in the same sales thread. A limit to pictures on Craigslist makes more sense there than here.
I do like the idea of people having one or maybe two sales threads at the same time and people editing them when they want to sell more or take down an item. A person being able to close or lock a sales thread when it is complete would be far simpler and allow for threads to not be ‘permanent’. HOWEVER, this would require the forum to allow editing of posts more reliably than it currently does. The problem with members not being able to edit all of their posts when they wish seems to still exist. Sometimes you can edit a post once and that’s it. Sometimes not at all. Sometimes as many times as you wish. It isn’t consistent. This would help a lot.
I do search through old sales threads (or other forum threads) quite often and find it useful for reference purposes, and I’m sure others do the same. Archiving sounds better than deleting threads older than say, 6 months. Perhaps moving them to a ‘graveyard’ or ‘archive’ area for searching purposes, but locking the threads, so they can’t be bumped. Necro-posting of threads that are old only because someone didn’t realize the sales thread was 2 years old is annoying. This would help that.
I could see perhaps not allowing comments from others to a thread outside of the person who created it. This is done on a large forum I’m on, however, there are some members here who aren’t able to receive PMs and have email that isn’t reliable.
What bayoudragon said. I think it’s a lot more of problem of members not editing their thread titles or even their postings. Edit a thread title to reflect an update (ie. updated 12/6). If an item sells, mark it clearly as sold or remove the item from the sales post. Some members simply just forget, some don’t care and don’t bother, but some experience the ‘unable to edit problem’ (see above).
It’s never going to be perfect, as there will always be new members joining who might not read rules before posting, or an older member who forgot one.
A suggestion, as the forum is a bit bigger than it used to be. Why not have more than one moderator? One to moderate say, the Buy/Sell/Trade/Repair section, one for the Misc. section, and another for the Windstone Editions section? Moderation can be a giant task for one person and splitting it up might help alleviate that stress a bit.
I am very glad you started this azurielle. This is an issue that needs to be thought through and have some changes made. There is no question that, to make it more useful, it needs to be simplified.
This is my argument for subforums, there would be less of a need for the busted search function if the main four(dragon, hoofer, griffin, cat) were separated plus a misc forum. A unicorn collector wouldnt have to wade through everything else to get what they want and vice versa. Someone hunting for a GB uni would have their own forum(hoofer) or a GB poad(misc) would have a specific section to do so. Someone who wanted a griffin wouldnt be slogging through a dozens of threads that have everything but griffins in them.
And another additional suggestion: Having a requirement that a person must have 25 forums posts outside the marketplace before they are allowed to post in it. This gives a newbie more time to actually read rules and would prevent a lot of ancient thread bumping. Not sure how to implement this except to block new members from being able to post in there until they reach the proper post count.
One thing that bothers me about the pm system is although we get email notifications, there isn’t a notification on the site if you leave yourself logged in. It’d be nice to have a little counter at the top that says “0 new messages” and changes if you get new ones. A lot of the time I see I have a pm in my email and then forget when I come onto the forum. I’ve never had a problem with pm’s not going through or not arriving. It’s always worked fine.
I think one for sale and one want to buy thread per person is a good rule
I think you should fix the editing problems too, especially for threads. I don’t necessarily like the idea of being able to edit individual posts after others have replied. But threads for sure. I think it’s much easier for each person to maintain and run ONE sales thread, updating with new pieces and adding/ removing pictures as needed.
I kind of hate the craigslist classifieds idea and the splitting into sub-categories idea. Both of those make it kind of hard to see everything for sale by each person.
If you made it a rule that each person could have ONLY one sales thread, then if they had issues editing, they could email whoever and work it out. Then make it a rule to only bump threads after 10 days or when a new item is available.
I hate the 10 days thing. It should be less. 5 at most even.
And the ‘wait for someone to help’ thing isnt reasonable if you need to sell something for funds now. The economy isnt exactly kind at the moment. And if someone is selling for a reason(lost job, rent, etc) and suddenly cant update their thread, they should be able to make another one. The forums glitchiness isnt their fault. So they shouldnt have to wait on a mod to fix it when im sure a mod has bigger issues to handle.
I’m not so much for the idea of sub-forums for different kinds of Windstones. It works for people selling one piece at a time, but for sellers with a lot of pieces being sold at once, you’re asking them to create and keep tabs on multiple threads in multiple forums where there would have been only one before. Just putting in two more cents…
What’s simple to me is this:
1) Check the forum. Read the topics that interest you.
2) Click the “Mark topics as Read” button when you’re done. It’s right there at the top of every forum page.
3) Come back in a few days, there are only a few threads that have ANY new activity. They are marked in big red letters. They are easy to see.
Isn’t this a bit easier than the other proposals, which require:
A) increased moderation
b) a complete restructuring
c) more sub-forums
d) changes to the visual layout
e) changes to the forum coding
f) some or all of the above???????????
I like having all the items from one seller listed together. For me it makes it easy to see what’s for sale at a glance.
Rather than splitting the market by what’s being sold I’d like to see it split into selling and buying. That way we have a buying, selling and trading section. I don’t like wading through buying threads to see what’s for sale and vice versus. There’s been a fair bit of buying threads lately so making a separate section would greatly cut down the clutter we have right now. That and of course staying on topic and editing to keep the thread current.
Also I think 10 bumping is too long as you tend to forget about your thread by the tenth day. Instead a 7 day limit might be better that way you could but say ever Tuesday or whatever. I know that’s only 3 days different but for me 10 days seems like an eternity and 7 seems routine.
I hate the 10 days thing. It should be less. 5 at most even.
And the ‘wait for someone to help’ thing isnt reasonable if you need to sell something for funds now. The economy isnt exactly kind at the moment. And if someone is selling for a reason(lost job, rent, etc) and suddenly cant update their thread, they should be able to make another one. The forums glitchiness isnt their fault. So they shouldnt have to wait on a mod to fix it when im sure a mod has bigger issues to handle.
On the one occassion I had problems editing my thread, I pm’d Jen, and within a day we had the problem worked out. If a situation is so desperate it can’t wait a day or two to fix, then selling stuff here isn’t going to make much of a difference.
I do agree that perhaps we need another mod or two, and there are plenty of people who are on here a lot who may be willing to take on that job. It certainly would help the mods that are here feel less overwhelmed, like poor Jen did.
Keeper of the Fledgings
I’m not so much for the idea of sub-forums for different kinds of Windstones. It works for people selling one piece at a time, but for sellers with a lot of pieces being sold at once, you’re asking them to create and keep tabs on multiple threads in multiple forums where there would have been only one before. Just putting in two more cents…
What’s simple to me is this:
1) Check the forum. Read the topics that interest you.
2) Click the “Mark topics as Read” button when you’re done. It’s right there at the top of every forum page.
3) Come back in a few days, there are only a few threads that have ANY new activity. They are marked in big red letters. They are easy to see.
Isn’t this a bit easier than the other proposals, which require:
A) increased moderation
b) a complete restructuring
c) more sub-forums
d) changes to the visual layout
e) changes to the forum coding
f) some or all of the above???????????
This is what I currently do, and the problem, which was my original statement, is that it doesn’t help with all the clutter when you are trying to find something in the marketplace that might be more than 3 pages back. Even trying to find my own threads, which I rarely bump is extremelly difficult because of the multitude or redundant, or basically dead, or uneeded threads.
This forum has gotten a lot bigger than it was when I first joined it, and as much as no one really likes change, there comes a time when there is no choice. Unfortunetly, doing nothing really doesn’t seem like a good option anymore.
Keeper of the Fledgings
I do see your point. How often do people need to search more than three pages back? How can those people best be accommodated with the least stress on the staff? Items are usually sold by the time they get to the bottom of the first page. If they get to the second page, they’re usually bumped by the seller.
So are you looking for items to sell, or an old forum post of yours that you want to edit?
I have absolutely zero problems finding anything in the Flea Market/Trade forums. Dead threads are usually halfway down the first page and I just don’t read them because they don’t get updated and the items in them aren’t for sale anymore.
I agree that change is necessary too, but as I mentioned before, the options that have been suggested seem to make navigating the forum more restricted to post in, and more difficult to moderate. :/
So, why do we need to be sorting through dead threads? How is this different from the General or Community forums? When threads go dormant on there, no one complains about the clutter, or needing multiple sub-forums, or more mods to delete threads that aren’t updated.
If a complete restructuring and increased moderation is necessary, so be it, but I don’t understand why it’s necessary as the current format is not that difficult to navigate!
As I stated in an earlier thread, I don’t bump my FS thread very often, so it sometimes goes back 4, 5,6 pages or more before I go looking for it again. And about a month ago, I was looking for a specific item, and wanted to see if anyone had one for sale. The search function returned 4+ pages of threads with the search parameters, and after searching all those threads for over an hour, it was only to discover that most of the threads were either repeats, dead, threads, or the item was already sold but not marked as such. It is not the first time I’ve had that problem, and it makes for a very disorganized marketplace. The changes I’m asking for are really not that difficult to make. And if we make them now, rather than in a few years when we have even more forum members selling even more items, and hundreds of pages of dead threads, some dating back YEARS, we are saving time and effort. I’m sorry, I just don’t believe that if we leave everything alone, it will be fine. Forums don’t get smaller. Only bigger. We learned that the hard way on my doll forum, and changing things after the fact is a bigger hassle.
Keeper of the Fledgings
Yeah, I’m sorry, I reread your post better and was trying to make an edit but you replied before I could word what I said more appropriately. Sorry! 🙂
What if the Search function worked better? Would that solve _most_ of this issue?
What if you could click on your account page, and see all of the posts you’ve made in one place? Would that make it easier to update an old sale thread of yours? If your old post is more than three pages back, why not just make a new thread? Few people are going to go looking in the archives for current sales.
How do we make this easiest with minimal work? Perhaps some changes to how posts are tracked might solve 80% of the issue.
Honestly, the most reasonable suggestion I’ve seen was adding a separate “buying” and “selling” section. This would not require much additional moderation, and I could ignore the “buying” since I’m not selling… :).
I think rules put in place asking sellers to keep one thread aren’t unreasonable. If that thread is more than 10 days old, maybe they have the option to bump OR create a new thread with items still for sale and any new items they have added.
If someone is in violation and it REALLY bothers you, then you could report it to John. Also, as someone else mentioned, if you have problems editing your thread, you should be able to get it resolved fairly quickly.
So, my proposal would be:
1.) Archive all the older content currently in the marketplace
2.) Create a separate “buying” area
3.) Ask sellers to restrict themselves to one selling thread or bump every 10 days (also, if everyone is doing this – your thread shouldn’t drop off the front page so quickly)
4.) Ask buyers to restrict themselves to one WTB thread or bump every 10 days
5.) Require sellers and buyers to update their threads when an item sells or is located WITHOUT bumping it (edit, not reply)
6.) Ask that the good luck or “wish I could buy” or “wish I could find one” replies be left out – but messages about PMs or requests for information about a piece can be left.
7.) Until such a time as a new moderator comes on board, any true issues should be escalated to John – but maybe for new people we just point them to the rules once before we escalateI don’t see any reason to limit the number of pictures or items in any given sell post. It’s less clutter to have them in one thread so you just have to open that one than have someone selling 20 items make 5 threads.
Thoughts?
I think that’s a pretty good idea. 🙂 Any seller could check if someone wants to buy their piece before they even have to post a thread about it in the Sales forum. In that way, it could reduce how many sales threads are posted.
What if you could click on your account page, and see all of the posts you’ve made in one place? Would that make it easier to update an old sale thread of yours?.
This already exists. If you go into your account, there should be a tab near the top labelled “Track”. When you click it, it will show you all the threads you have commented on and who started the thread, all organized by when you last commented on it. A person wanting to find their old sales thread could easily find it by looking at the appropriate posting date and picking out the thread started by themselves. (In fact, I did this just this morning.) It’s considerably easier than wading through all Flea Market pages. Which brings me to the next point…
I agree with everyone who suggested that there be separate buying and selling sections, and that there be a way to archive old/finished threads. Everyone could have one buying and one selling thread, and bumping would be allowed after 7 days of inactivity. I think this, along with keeping needless comments to a minimum, would be a huge improvement.
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