i also think seperating the for sale from the selling really kinda sucks too because most people dont cruise the classifides just looking to sell a wingwind for a 52 Pontiac or some obscure nash astray most people are looking to buy not sell, i still haven't looked in the wanted yet i probably should
Brandy's on day 4. Brandy's going crazy. Brandy's going to go hold her precious now. Seriously, I don't care if anyone replies or if anyone bumps **I linked my ad in my signature line, next time I'll make it REALLY witty so ALL of the pervy guys will read it**, but the wanted section was dealt a devestating blow. No one bothers reading them on the scale they used to. I'll figure it out........I've got a few aces up my sleeve.
Growing pains folks. It's been less than a week. Give it time and we will work it all out. I think it would be cool for everyone who has posted to this thread to go back and re-rad all that has been said and see what we deal with. No matter what we do, there is no way in hell we will make everyone happy.
THAT would be a blessing I'll be the one that asks the stupid question----y'all changed the classifieds for what reason? Too much bandwidth used by replies(some of which were irrelevant)?? Too much policing time for the moderators?(who are volunteers, right?(THANK you guys, btw ) Too many bumps by a few? To improve it? hmmm...... I don't think PMs are the most efficient(read that fastest) way to do business---sometimes I have trouble retrieving mine(I have one right now I can't access--"website not responding" message ) There's a wanted ad up now that I *may* be able to help the guy....but I'm not gonna wanna waste a buncha time PMing when he already may have found what he wants--you know what I mean? With replys, at least we know if he's been taken care of or not. I AIN'T bitchin', just trying to understand. Matter of fact, I don't even "expect" an explanation. In my world, I don't fix stuff unless it's broke . xoxoxo mid-tenn mike
Answer to section 1 : All of the above Answer to section 2: The WTB person can post "thanks guys found what I want" so he doesn't waste all of your time to PM him trying to help. The classifieds became so saturated by A LOT of replies that just became so redundant unrelated to the thing being offered for sale. Also - you forgot about the complaints we recieved more and more of guys posting things for sale and complaining that there add went to page 4 in 2 hours because of BTTT or by mostly "wish it were closer" "wish I had the money" replies. So, a handful of people who were replying unreleted repetative chit-chat created a situation of change. By the way, this did not happen over night. Behind the seens there was a LOT of discussion on changes between Ryan and the moderators. Is everything set in concrete forever ? No Everything is progress in motion. You know what - Ryan has replied that BTTT won't be back, but replies may. Well that would be great IF guys would reply just to the specific sale item and not anything else. I won't miss ever again "Wish it were closer" "Wish I had the money" "Nice Car - it should sell" Well don't post - buy it yourself if you like it that much. All those created to some of these changes. And the changes came from many comments related to the CHIT-CHAT that made the classifieds cluttered. What Rashy said - There will be no way to keep everyone happy 100%. If guys would have just kept to the original rules, these changes probably would have not taken place, but more and more were blowing off the rules/ignoring the rules/ or not reading them at all were A LOT to do with the changes. I don't expect eveyone to understand this, but maybe if you remember back to some of the things mentioned, you might relate to some of the extra posts that ran up post counts for the sake of running up post counts, if you know what I mean. Cob Forum Moderator
Cob, thanks for the clarification. You answered MY question(and probably enlightened a few people) No matter what form the HAMB classifieds morph into, it's still the best resource for the stuff I like. I've bought /sold/gave away here with a sense of family, and you guys will have to BAN me to get me to go away! Thanks, and I hope you didn't take any offense to my query.
The only challenge with that is some guys don't have digital cameras and don't know how to post them. When I want to sell something, you can be darn sure I would have pictures as it increases the sale by a qaudrillion percent. We encourage pictures off course. It helps eliminate 10 guys posting "got any pics ?" Cob Forum Moderator
Where to start. Pros- 1. Separate FS/WTB sections 2. Thread headings What?, $'s, Where Cons- 1. No public replies 2. Everything pushed to the backroom (PM's) You guys have made huge strides to streamline this baby. I applaud you all on this. It has taken some foresight, as well as some hindsight to wade through the mire to this point in time. I still find I check both FS/WTB sections every time I visit the HAMB. So that dispels the whole myth/foreshadow that one will get more traffic than the other. My personal observation though, volume is way down. We have seen a substantial drop in products for sale and WTB on the board. Is this just an initial reaction to the change and it will give way to renewed faith in the new way? Or will it push these deals off the HAMB and to the swap meets, real or online (ePay)? Were the BTT's and "Wish it where closer", etc... that bad? I never even notice those, you scroll right past them, right? Which brings in padding post counts. Of course a fella could pad his posts, but in the grand scheme of this post counting thing is it really going to amount to HUGE #'s? People say post counts don't matter, etc.. I say Bullshit, that is a measurement of their ePenis. Hell, we've gotten how many threads asking "Where'd my post count go"? Don't take this as something bad. I would never buy anything from a guy in the Classified if he only had 9 posts. And I would seriously pay attention to tech info from someone with say 6,000. As for the classifieds I've had the probably an equal amount of luck one way or the other with newer vs. more established HAMB'rs I share Earl Schiebs sentiments My preference would be; I like the new format but add post replies back. I don't see the need for all the policing. 3 moderators? Not that I don't appreciate the presence of 3, I guess its the Republican in me that wants less government presence. If one moderator notices a trend of a certain poster BTT'ing, then just ax the guys thread. That'll teach 'em. And if someone complains about his FS going 4 pages back in one day due to 4 pages of new items, well....tough shit. But as it stands now, it takes 4 days to put an item 1 page back due to the drop in volume. And it eliminates things such as chromedRAT's shifter skull deals, HIDDEN's t-shirts (with replies turned into several Hoodies), or seeing that a seller had not been forthcoming with other fellas so I could steer clear. I can't count the number of times, I've PM'd guys to ask about how there dealings where with "X" individual, because I saw that they had purchased something from "X" individual in the past. Two days ago I answered a WTB ad. It took 3 PM's each way just to figure out the deal wasn't going to happen. When I believe two posts would have solved all. I all can't count how many times a parasitic deal has happened on the old HAMB. Member A puts up a WTB. Member B answers with a post of what he has and wants ($'s) for it. Member A passes for some reason or another. Member C sees the correspondence between A & B, and needs what B has and the price works, and deal gets struck. The replies add a dynamic to the board, making it multidimensional/multilateral. My apologize for being so long winded, IDS
IDS, A few answers to your questions. In the beginning - a few "wish it were closer" "wish i had the money" popped up. Then some more. Then Some more. And then a lot of adds had that mutiple times over and over again. About 15 or so regulars wished on a lot of adds. It just happened over a period of time. The BTT increased so much from the "wish it were's" and O/T junk. Again, If guys would have just kept closer to the original rules, changes would not have been made. Also - Rules police. People have lives other than the H.A.M.B.- I know hard to believe, but having the 3 moderators kind of helping each other when we have time. The old way - I would get 5-10 emails/ daily from guys who brought up post problems, that needed taken care of. Now - I have had 2 total. Ryan mentioned earlier he might reconsider replies but BTT are gone. My thoughts on replies is cautious based on histories and guys posting O/T junk for conversation sake. This board has 1000's of people on it everyday and as a less government person myself - I say. We will not make everyone 100% happy. As far as posts being down - heck yea posts are down because of all the non related O/T comments that kept people busing reading through all the O/T stuff. It costs money to run it and yet it is free for all to enjoy. Don't worry - nothing is set in stone, so some adjustments may be made. Cob Forum Moderator
Let me share some numbers I have gathered. Prior to doing this switch I came up with a list of pros and cons, The Mods discussed them and we looked at a lot of different options. I took four days including a Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and counted the ads. Keep in mind the number of BTTT's is actually higher than my average because some of these were BTTT'd every day and I had no good way to monitor that. The numbers, averages..... Cars for sale ads, 2 Parts for sale ads, 14 Misc for sale ads, 12 BTTT'd ads, 37 The new forum, from the last Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday Cars for sale ads, 5 Parts for sale ads, 17 Misc for sale ads, 3 BTTT'd ads, 0 Why do we care about BTTT ads? Before we had at least 65 ads roll through a day. If the average user has their number of threads per page set at 15, this is 4.5 pages of ads to look through each day, assuming the average user logs on each day. Most do not. Now let's say the average user checks the HAMB at work on their break, how many of that 4.5 pages aof ads are they going to get to sift through? Do they care who was first? Do they care about all the other crap we were weeding out on a regular basis? The majority of ads are placed between 6 a.m and 11:30, central time. Let's say dude posts his car for sale at 6:30 in the morning and heads off to work where he doesn't have internet access. The day blows by, he has a life, he checks the ad the next morning to find it 4.5 pages down, if there was no response. That blows because that's exactly where the guy checking the HAMB with his 10 minutes a day won't find it. And what about the ads that stack up all weekend? No way the people with limited HAMB time are going to see the one that didn't get BTTT'd a bqajillion times. So, I started looking for ideas, I started catologing the ideas the HAMB users were sending us. I looked at some of the forums focused on Vbulletin forums. The most helpful one has eliminated BTTT's and has the same arguments from users, for an against. It's all relative though. If NO ONE can bump their ad then everyone has the same, BETTER chance of it being seen. But now the limited user can log in, see the ads that are in bold, and KNOW that it is an ad they haven't seen. As you can see by the numbers, For sale ads are actually in greater supply than before, with the exception of the MISC items, but our focus here is cars and parts so we'll take it like it is. I'll crunch some numbers on WTB ads but I can tell you the average before was 14 per day and I did not break them into categories. There are way more than 14 per day now. The one thing that would seriously help sellers and buyers alike would be for the person posting the ad to invest a little time in it.
I have to say haing things seperated is great as I can actually find things..The WANTED section is super helpful,as it can help forego listing stuff
Fellas (CCC & Rashy)- Thank you for taking time to pay my post some attention. I'm hoping, and wishing, and praying Ryan does consider going back to the post reply system in the classfieds. I believe the "BTT" is like an auto traffic jam and the BTT guy is the one hualing ass down the side of traffic to cut back in line. My thoughts are the current system has fewer products for sale or WTB these days. Well Rashy somewhat disproved that with a snapshot of statistics. But the added dynamic I'm trying to expound on is the ratio of products to deals struck. Doesn't seem like we are seeing to many "SOLDS" or "FOUNDS". Once again, I didn't run any stats, just a shot from the hip observation. I apoligize up front for taking your replies and addressing only the parts I have an indifferent outlook on. CCC- You and I are seeing eye to eye on this one. If you can cut the issues to 2 total a day, that frees up the other two guys for more time in the shop/time with family/time reading over in gen discussion. I think the current structure has limited the problems you see because it has limited the free flowing system. As a brain storm what about a system where the thread Author is held accountable for any wrong doing by a simple delete of his thread. As well as the thread Author having delete rights within his own thread. He can police his own thread. I know this is thinking way outside the box. Or lets finish out another couple weeks on the current system. We'll all take notes. Then as Ryan has cautiously mentioned adding the Replys back to the mix, and we do a 3-4 week test run and reconvene. I think two functions that could make this a smoother, less abrasive format is to give a few more functions to the enduser. Allow the author Thread delete rights. As well as all the posters post delete rights. This I believe is the added dynamic of the board. I can open up the local newspaper classfieds and get the exact same format as the HAMB currently has. I believe the "for conversations sake" is the golden egg. I'm not sure why this is needing to be cut out. Information flow is certainly a multifaceted/multiway street and the old ads, not only allowed for the exchange of products but also one of this boards main goals the exchange of knowledge and information of a traditional hot rodding nature. There were tidbits of extremely useful insight within the classfieds, that did not warrant a New Thread over in Gen. Discussion. At no time did I say anything about posts, I did say new products are down. As a consolation posts/traffic are extremely down. This is where the two of us don't see eye to eye. To me O/T is someone talking about what they did Wednesday night in the middle of a classified for a WTB '37 LaSalle toploader. Not additional info on how you can convert a side shift lasalle to topshift with a hurst shifter. Ryan has been adament about how he doesn't need the donations or the HAMB Auctions, etc. to make this board run. You know and I know this stuff ain't free. I think its Ryans way of inviting us all to dinner and telling us "No, you don't need to bring anything", but you'd be extremely rude if you didn't say bring a bottle of wine for dinner. Know what I'm saying? I am 100% sure I have given more than a fair share, but I'm not argueing that. The HAMB makes me want to give back. The more we give back the more we can grow and expand on the solid base that you guys have worked to build. I've seen a lot of other boards fund themselves differently. But my personal favorite is a Free Board, but you can purchase an annual membership to post pictures. Say if only 20% of our 12,000 members bought $20 annual memberships thats $48K a year. And we police the photo linkers and push them to the BTT hell? And see thats why I love this place. Rashy thank you for taking the time and crunching the #'s. I do the #'s everyday for my job. So yeah I'm a #'s guy. The thing though you learn about the #'s is they are black and white, or in the Black and in the Red. They can hardly account for grey areas. I admit I do not have a solution for the "My thread went back 4.5 pages in one day". I personally do not see that as a problem, or if I admit it is, then its a good problem to have. AMEN!!!! Fellas, as you can see I've taken a fair share of time to voice an opinion. Its just that its an opinion. I hope my long winded ranting isn't blackballing myself. You guys have done a great job, and I appreciate your requests for constructive criticism of any changes that you guys have made as well as have considered making. Please add the dynamic back to the classfieds, IDS
Its really sad the new system sucks but will be justified and stay the same.. I like it in alot of ways but its not as efective and thats whats important in sales I am glad it works for the moderators ect ect but the bottom line is If no one is pming and they use too its not working
Well Slazzen look at this way, the"send reply" button and the "Send PM" are two buttons way from each other. I ask the question to fellow H.A.M.B.'rs in the past who posted replies to Slazzen's, what is stopping you from PM'ing Slazzen on his adds now ? You click a button and type a reply to Slazzen. If your reply is to Slazzen, why would it make a difference if no one else reads it. Is it you guys like reading your posts no matter who you reply to ? Really Slazzen, I am trying to see on this one for you. Cob Forum Moderator
Dang Slaz, First of all, some people think it sucks, some people love it. Same as we had before. And no one is trying to "justify" anything here. Just sharing what brought us to this point while trying to keep it all sugar coated moderatory so we don't piss people off in the process. Did the classifieds work before? Sure did. Were they a lot of work? Sure as hell were. But it's a hot rod thing man, just like our cars, we always want it to be better, faster, cooler. No one said things won't change, in fact, the BOSS himself said that replies will probably be back but BTTT won't. And the honest truth is that a few things are not at all what we wanted but there are limitations to these things and we are hacking our way through fixing a couple issues. The Classifieds, hell, the HAMB didn't get what it was overnight and changes are painful, slow sometimes. It's been a little over a week, we won't be knee jerking back and forth or we will never know what works. As far as peoples comments, we are always interested, when they are put forth in a constructive manner.
Well the way the old way was if a guy placed a new add and a bunch of guys that had several items for sale in another older add sold most, but still had one or two and kept bring the "old picked over crap" BTTT then the guy with the new add could go to page 4 in a couple hours. Only a hand full of people saw the new add, but because all the BTTT came up, his new add on page 4 got shit canned overlooked to the back row and guys don't go to page 4 to look up "old picked over crap" like you said, even though his add was less than 6 hours old. That was a complaint over and over. Can't help you if you don't want to look back at adds to see if you missed something. That's your choice and I'm sure you overlooked a deal or lost one because you didn't. Your choice. As far as I'm concerned, the seller of a part that does not post "Sold" right after a deal is done is jerking other H.A.M.B.'rs around by not posting Sold. Cripes - are people that lazy they can't post "Sold" ? As far as where you are in line for PM's. Like you said..you never knew when it was the other way also, so it's really about the integrity of the H.A.M.B.'r selling it then. That won't change. Cob Forum Moderator
might as well lock or delete this thread these moderators dont want to hear us!! they never admit somethings wrong
Thanks for your thoughts. There will no longer be anything that I will say to make everyone on this subject 100% happy so there - fore, I will no longer comment regardless of what the comment is. My mistake boys- sorry. I'll just sit back -watch and read. Cob Forum Moderator
Well I wasn't going to respond to this because, quite frankly, the two of you are beating a dead horse. Obviously we want to hear what you have to say or I never would have started this thread in the first place. I have admitted plenty is wrong with it and have said that we are working on it. And as far as whatever else is chapping your asses, we are just trying to explain things from this side of the fence. In an adult manner. I won't close this thread because I'm hoping we can get some CONSTRUCTIVE discussion going again. Trust me, I have, "fuck the classifieds now, they suck" on my list. I can tell you right now the two of you will never be happy with what we do and at this point, that's just fine with me.
I'm a bit surprised at some of the responses. I think we've mentioned a number of times that the classifieds are a work in progress... Things will change here and there during the next couple of weeks based on feedback we get and stats we read... The folks insinuating that we aren't listening simply haven't been paying attention... We built this joint by listening and taking feedback seriously. Something to keep in mind... The HAMB classifieds are free. That means you get over 1 million page views (by over 350,000 different people) per WEEK for NOTHING out of your pocket. The HAMB is the only place in the world where that can happen with such a targeted group. In order to do this for free, I have guys like Rashy, Rock, and Cob that donate their time in an effort to make this place run more smoothly... They do an excellent job. And lets not forget the original intent of the classified system. It's not here to make you money... It's here to give you an opportunity to give fellow members a break on parts knowing your parts are going to someone of like mind. We aren't eBay. Now, I completely understand that we can't make everyone 100% happy 100% of the time. If you fall in the group that we just can't please, then by all means - don't use our classifieds system.
I consider myself fairly new here, although I have been here for two years. I have used the classifieds, never sold anything that I had listed and have bought several things off of here. I like the new system as I do not have to go several pages back to see what was listed and I missed. I would like to see the replies put back in and leave the bttt out for sure. I am fixing to list a car on here for sale and then I will let you know how it goes. I do appreciate what the moderators and Ryan do with the HAMB and this is the classifieds included.
my .02... like the setup, don't like the NO REPLIES. I'm also a little confused on the NO BTTT??? Why does it matter so much? It was prolly sexplained up there a bunch of times but I kinda skimmed it.... My machine shows the threads I haven't read in BOLD.... I could skim the classifieds in a couple minutes every mornin. sometimes 10+ pages! If people were better in their titles, that would've help the classifieds a bunch... and you took care of that. LOCATION... nice option that was definately needed... I'm still crying in my coffee cause my post count went down... +1 for me fuckers.
There is a old saying if you dont want my opinion dont ask !!! I am in no way insinuating anything and feel you guys do a good job. I also feel like this is a my way or the highway attitude most of the time. And that the realization that its subscribers built this place is overlooked. I could care less about making money on the HAMB I have great hussle and can make money anywhere I want. My point is if you want to provide a service for free or charge ??? It dosnt matter you should want its subscribers to get results....If the results are lacking it is inefective..The old classifieds where unique the comments where a tool that helped you sell your items it also gave a public question asking result for everyone to see.. the btt showed if a seller was motivated and if a hard working persistant seller worked his item it would sell.. The forsale wanted section just makes you look in 2 spots.. My second point is if you rebut everything that is discussed it sounds like your not listening..thats my experiance ..... the zen master
More thought after my post is that: Sure you can always place a magazine ad and build up the subscribers when they leave.. but the content is comprimized look at last weeks tech week??? no mike bishop no wizzerick what happened to samiam lukejivetalker ect ect the content 2 yrs ago was top knotch on here... those guys went elsewhere
Edit. ps: for the record, I don't dislike the setup.....it's just the "no replies" thing. Matter of fact it needed to have where the part was from so you could skip on if it was too far instead of pm'ing to ask where they were. Knowing now they aren't done, I'm sure they'll come out good in the end.
The Jalopy Journal
