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Is the PYO commission thread about selling commissions, or commissioning others?
This is where you would commission an artist, so we’re talking sales; that’s probably why the thread is in the flea market. We could put an alias in the PYO section too.
Yes, this. I just associate that thread with the PYO forum and was wondering if anyone else was the same. Actually, it would be kinda sweet if the thread could follow the laws of quantum physics and be in two places at the same time. But it’s not a big deal. My brain just works differently. XD
Is the PYO commission thread about selling commissions, or commissioning others?
This is where you would commission an artist, so we’re talking sales; that’s probably why the thread is in the flea market. We could put an alias in the PYO section too.
Yes, this. I just associate that thread with the PYO forum and was wondering if anyone else was the same. Actually, it would be kinda sweet if the thread could follow the laws of quantum physics and be in two places at the same time. But it’s not a big deal. My brain just works differently. XD
I agree with you XD
If PYO is in the name I think it should go under the PYO forum.I’m all for three sub-forums– Buy, Trade, Sell. 🙂 We could give that a test run, and see if it alleviates or solves the other issues.
I thought the Track function wasn’t working, oops. Awesome! [checks] … But it only shows a list of threads you’ve posted in, which makes it hard to locate specific posts quickly. Ideally, you could just access a list of your own posts only, in chronological order. I do remember that on the old forum. Would this be difficult or easy to re-implement?
Please don’t limit how many photos we can post, or further limit how large we can make them. (We already host these images on our own sites so it seems s bit strange to limit number of pics. Am I missing something?) I second staying away from a Craigslist type format. I actually love Craigslist, but it is a horrible format for selling high-end collectibles like Windstones IMO.
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.
What if you want to look back and find something that you have already marked as “Read”? It is still a jumble of stuff to search through.
Use the Advanced Search. I just tested it three times. First search for phrase “fantasy grab bag” turned up posts in the Flea Market only that mentioned Fantasy Grab Bag Unicorns. Second search for phrase “emerald male” brought up all posts mentioning an Emerald Male dragon. Third search for phrase “violet flame fledgling” had similar results. All were easy to sort through and went back years in the archives.
Here’s a screenshot of how I set it up (click for full size):
Regarding step 3: if you find you aren’t getting very many results, search the box marked “Containing any of the words:” rather than the one marked “Containing the phrase”.
Does this solve the issue somewhat?
That’s the problem with the marketplace though. You search Emerald Male dragon, you get posts going back years! This is NOT helpful if you’re looking fos something that may actually still be for Sale. And the Flea market has like 2700+ threads in it. It has more threads than ANY other part of the forum! Again not useful if you’re actually looking for something to buy. This is why an archive would be helpful because other than maybe a reference or reminder, we don’t need threads for items that were sold in 2007!
Keeper of the Fledgings
The search sorts by how closely the posts it found match your query. I wonder there can be an option to sort matching results by the post date, or exclude old/archived posts.
Jon was saying that locating anything OLD is too hard, the advanced search shows that you can locate anything you’re looking for, no matter how old.
While I did find posts that went back years, I also found tons of hits on the first page for items currently for sale.
So some people complain that they can’t find anything, other people complain that they find too much. Even on Craigslist or Ebay, you have to SEARCH to find what you want, and LOOK through the results. Near as I can tell there is no mind-reading forum software. 😉
I’m pretty good at various searches and narrowing them down. Simply saying that while I am not too bad, casual forum users are going to have a hard time. And 2700+ threads, most of which are dead or redundant is ridiculous. Period. Not really asking a lot here. Just a little organzation, some common sense, and common courtesy. all of which are pretty basic for just about every other forum with a marketplace.
Keeper of the Fledgings
I talked to John last night and what he is proposing is not for each user to make a completely separate thread for each item they are selling. Instead it would be an ebay-like system without the bidding. Each item you are selling would get its own listing, and pictures would show up as thumbnails that could be enlarged. It would be more time consuming for people with a lot of items to sell but it would make it possible for other people to very quickly find what you are selling. When a user is looking for a white unicorn, they could search for white unicorn and instantly get every listing FOR a white unicorn, not 200 threads mentioning white or mentioning unicorns somewhere in the comments or signatures. Users could also click your name to see what other items you are selling. All listings would expire after a certain amount of time unless they were relisted by the seller.
Of course this is all theoretical right now. I’m not sure how functional a system like this would be considering it would involve combining several existing elements of the site that already don’t work properly! (search functions, image galleries, forum functions, and user-specific post tracking)
….but one of the biggest reasons I like using the forum for sales is because it’s not ebay or Craigslist. T_T
Jon and Pam, I mean no offense by this and I’m a newish member so maybe you did in the past, but I’ve never seen you sell or trade pieces in the forum. Pam I realize you work with the ebay format all the time, but for some of us it’s really not the most convenient or easy way to sell things. I work full time, and formatting and putting up my pieces on ebay, individually, is quite frankly a pain in the arse compared to being able to come here to the forum, and make a post with all the pieces in one place. That makes this forum format my first choice when I have to sell.
Honestly, do whatever is easiest for the staff in the long run, please! 🙂 I just think this seems to be a good way to manage the content:
– Archive threads that are older than, say 3 months, or have had no activity for 3 months, some criteria such as that.
– Have users be able to track their own posts in their account page, as on the old forum
– Give users some options for sorting their search results, like by date, or whether to include archived posts.…but I’m not a member of the staff. 😉 So while this seems the best way to make everyone happy without having to recode the whole forum, there may be some practical issues with implementation that I don’t see.
Also, I think a point is being missed. If a thread is old enough to make it off the front page and hasn’t been bumped by the seller, the items are probably sold. We don’t exactly have to sort through pages and pages of new posts each and every day. So, for people looking for new posts, there’s Mark Topics as Read and it’s very easy to see what’s updated or new when you come back. Or if you’re worried you’ve missed something, you can use the Advanced Search to narrow it down. (Maybe the Search gets an option added to sort by how recent they are, so you get a nice reverse chronological list. 😉 Eh?)
Again, maybe I’m missing some practical points about this, but this seems a far more practical way to handle the forum content than completely reinventing the wheel. And there are reasons the current format is favored by some sellers here compared to ebay or Craigslist.
It’s not even two cents at this point, it’s like 12….sorry :S
I have sold and bought in the flea market before. I was only trying to explain what john was suggesting 🙂 If it were up to me I would just archive the old threads, and be done with it! Fix the editing problems so that folks can mark their threads as done, archive and move any thread that has gone 30 days with no activity… The flea market would only be 4 pages long if this was done, and even less if all the WTB threads were moved. This would be SO MUCH easier, and cheaper for Windstone, than trying to invent a complicated listing type system. And if the search was fixed up to be a little more user friendly, I don’t think it would be very hard at all to find specific items for sale within the flea market. How much stuff is really for sale here anyway? I don’t think its really enough to justify the time and cost of building our own “craigbay”.
Additionally, people need to be a little more specific in their thread titles about what windstones they are actually selling.
John: would it be at all possible to implement the changes that everyone has been proposing here, to see if that solves the problem for everybody, BEFORE trying to convert the entire flea market into a craigbay?
I have sold and bought in the flea market before. I was only trying to explain what john was suggesting 🙂 If it were up to me I would just archive the old threads, and be done with it! Fix the editing problems so that folks can mark their threads as done, archive and move any thread that has gone 30 days with no activity… The flea market would only be 4 pages long if this was done, and even less if all the WTB threads were moved. This would be SO MUCH easier, and cheaper for Windstone, than trying to invent a complicated listing type system. And if the search was fixed up to be a little more user friendly, I don’t think it would be very hard at all to find specific items for sale within the flea market. How much stuff is really for sale here anyway? I don’t think its really enough to justify the time and cost of building our own “craigbay”.
This sounds fantastic to me.
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