Thoughts on flair ups in the classifieds

[chopitdropit]

I know I am fairly new to the forum, but I think you'll notice I've jumped in with both feet and this is not my only forum, so I hope this will be well recieved and a good discussion. To me a forum is a community born of common interest where you gain and strengthen new relationships.

I can't help but notice that recently a new member will show up, post in the classifieds first thing...no intro or anything and proceed not to read the rules, etc. Very quickly a flair up ensues.

I was thinking...no intro...no access to classifieds? Or maybe a minimum # of posts first to show you are here for the forum and not just hustling a part? Or somehow no access to classifieds unless first thread is accessed through the rules link? I have no idea how you would set that last one up...lol...just throwing out random ideas.

Any thoughts?

 

[Ghetto]

I would say a 10-15 post minimum to be able to post in the classifeds as a seller and a buyer.

 

[Teebs]

I find it a little entertaining myself. You can usually tell right away whether they're looking to be involved here or not. It's the ones that come off like they're a frikkin cheesy salesman in their first post that usually trigger the flair ups. If they would ease up with the sales pitch and just put a straight-forward ad up, nobody would say a word.

 

[650Skull]

I agree with teebs .........Slap me.What am i saying.

 

[Travis]

Thanks for starting this thread and not having the discussion in someone's ad...

The only issue I can see with requiring a certain number of posts is that people might just post 10 worthless replies to meet their quota like "nice bike man", then post their ad. I'm not ruling this option out though. Another option is requiring them to be registered for a certain period of time before they can post to the classifieds. Those options could also be combined.

I also agree with Teebs that even if their first post is in the classifieds but isn't cheesy, it's okay with me. The real problem is getting people to read the rules and even members that have been around awhile don't always do that. Well I guess the rules don't say anything about posting cheesy ads.

I don't know... if people post their cheesy sales pitches, we could all just ignore it. But maybe that would just create more ads like that people thought that's how you do it around here

 

[Teebs]

Maybe you could just add a filter that blocks any ad with too many exclamation points!

Well Skull, what can I say? If you aren't agreeing with me... you're wrong.

 

[gggGary]

What the heck can't we mess with the hucksters? cheap fun isn't it? Having dabbled in the buy sell game for a while, I hate it if I can't post some parts I found on say the Honda CB1100F site. I am forced to ebay which is last resort for me and often the parts just sit on my shelf. And what the heck this is a group site not ebay, let us mess with them a little, please?

 

[650Skull]

They are getting an opportunity to sell there wares with out any contribution to the site. Maybe a way to do this is to have a time limit on membership before posting classifieds, or charge a fee for the use of the site facilities, if all they want to do is sell parts.

Teebs, I was wrong once but then i found out i was right so i was have never been wrong

 

[dr mac]

I'am just a new guy here . Making a person post say 50 is fair.
That and no make offers . must a a sale price .
Then again I'am a new guy here and in the years I've been on the net I may have sold 3 motorcycle things . Mainly just buy and put in a box for when the pickers come buy later.

 

[hooktool]

Well, if someone has some worthwhile xs stuff to get rid of, and they make a decent post. why deny me, err, I mean us, a chance to buy it? Win-win. If you require a dickwad to have fifty posts, he'll be a dickwad with fifty posts and something to sell.

John

 

[gggGary]

+1 letting them post with no hoops to jump through is an advantage for us not them. And as we have seen, new posters get a rather vigorous vetting by the inmates here.

 

[Travis]

....
That and no make offers . must a a sale price .
...

I'm assuming you meant make all listings require a price and don't allow the 'Make Offer' stuff... If so, that's the way it used to be and some people got pissy that every part needed a price, so the make offer deal was the compromise.

The reason you see so many 'Make Offer' ads now, is people don't read the rules and still post stuff as 'For Sale' and don't list a price. So I change them all to Make Offer. I think the rules are pretty clear that all items listed as 'For Sale' need a price.

 

[xjwmx]

If you want to be the most efficient and effective, then just copy the big boys. Copy Craigslist - anything goes. Except showing up at somebody's house with an axe.

 

[gggGary]

Travis; can you use a form in the forum software?
ie first post on a thread would have
price :
location :
phone :
Will ship or local pick up only:
Year :
model:
Direct email:
condition:


Just some ideas to help posters get all the info in their ads.

 

[xjwmx]

That's a sharp idea. Make your requirements a red starred field. Use the bad word filter to detect more than one '!' in succession if you want

 

[gggGary]

While I'm on this horse; If you are RESPONDING to an ad;It really speeds things up if you provide your phone number and address, (at least a zip code) for guessing shipping. Also if you want pictures or more pictures your email so they can be simply mailed without having to jump through the hoops to get them on the site or elsewhere on the web. The last few things I sold on here had delayed shipping due to missing or multiple addresses.

 

[chopitdropit]

I started this post and disappeared...lol. Seems I'm not getting my e-mail notifications on this one. Technically, I must admit I see Teebs and Skulls side of things here. It is fun to fawk with 'em.

 

[Travis]

Gary, I say if they're going to take the time to email them as attachments, it would be almost as fast to add them to their post as attachments. Then they'd only have to do it once instead of multiple times for multiple people.

As far as adding fields to the tables and coding the templates to make an input form, it can be done but I'm not exactly sure how to do it. I could probably figure it out if I really had to.

 

[gggGary]

Sorry didn't mean to add to the "load".
Gotta say I haven't seen it done anywhere else either.

 

[Travis]

There are actually some pretty good classifieds "software" packages out there that could be integrated. It's one of the things I'm looking into, but the wiki is first, then a better gallery, then the classifieds. Actually, upgrading to vBulletin 4 will probably come before all of that though. That's the current plan anyway now that the site is on the new server. That took priority quick once traffic increased so fast. I was planning to upgrade to vBulletin 4 a long time ago, but it's been a little buggy so I'm waiting until it's more stable. I think the time has come. Kind of like buying the first year of a new model car... you gotta give them time to work out the bugs.

FYI, certain things that are already built into the forum software would be extremely easy to use though, like limiting peoples' use of the classifieds forum until they have a certain number of posts, have been a member for so long, or allowing them to respond to threads but not create threads until they meet some criteria. There are lots of controls on what permissions members have, but not for custom input fields.