Figured I'd scroll back and address some of the comments posted that I skipped over before...
One thing I noticed was changed, that to me does not make sense, is that I believe it used to be if a thread was inactive for 30 days, it was closed, but now a thread is closed after 21 days, even if it was active the day before. I went to post feedback on a thread that had been up since february, and it was closed, I believe because it was too old.
That was a typo in one location, Hebilly, where it said they auto-close in 30 days. While consolidating and revamping the rules, we noticed it said 21 days in another place. Once we discovered the contradiction, we had to actually ask neoprodigy which was correct. Turned out it's always been 21 days, not 30. So that didn't change.. just the verbage got corrected.
One of the side effects we found from some admin setting changes was that many of the old threads (still current and active) got auto-closed by the system. We've reopened most of those since that happened, depending on what the OP preferred. If anyone is still having trouble with a thread like this, just PM me and I can reopen them.. edit them.. or whatever else is needed.
Thanks for bringing that up, BTW.. I should have responded to this point earlier.
But its a problem when suddenly multiple FS threads are being closed within minutes of each other.
and another closed thread
closed because they need location and shipping info? come on its clearly stated where the OP lives and they specifically asked for a PM for shipping obviously because theyd rather do pickup. Im just confused why this is suddenly being enforced
Yes, Pappy. This is a transition phase that will be a pain in the butt for some people until we all get used to actually following the format rules that weren't enforced before. The title content requirements have not changed, we're just going through this now to sort of force sellers to post their sale/trade threads consistently.
Any time there's a rule change or some new enforcement policy, we know it's going to cause some grief and turmoil at first. That's understandable and it can't be helped. Even so, the inconvenience and excess clutter (all those closed threads) are temporary things that will sort themselves out. It's just been like this for a few days now and I'm already seeing much wider acceptance of the policy and we're hearing favorable feedback from buyers who appreciate more consistent title formats.
It would be my guess that 1 person is about 90% the cause of the revamping of the classifieds, but that would just be my guess
It's my understanding that this push for format compliance and consistency came from some issues raised at one of the other MAN sites. As all 4 of these sites are part of the same network, the rules were revised and will be applied the same way throughout all of the MAN Buy and Sell forums. The one person who made this decision is the site admin for all the sites. So the changes we're going through here right now aren't happening just at Aquaria Central and this current enforcement push didn't originate with us.
Our moderation staff here did have an opportunity to give some input to these changes. Based on the requests we've received from some of our most active sellers, we were able to relax the single-thread/consolidation rule imposed last March to allow high volume sellers to run special sales threads or other short promotional package threads at the same time without having to merge them into their longer, on-going sale thread. And without having to close one thread before they could create another one. This gives them more flexibility (which they asked us for) and lets us apply the same rules equally to
all members.... instead of applying the rules to some members while making "exceptions" for others.
It looks like the same as always - I guess people don't like the format rule.
It's a transition issue right now and it's a given there will be some drama over it at first. Nobody likes change regardless of the reasons or source. Add to that the fact that this is a strict enforcement approach that was taken and it's natural to expect this will create some resistance or resentment... at first.
Maybe give them the chance to change their title or it is deleted.
Sellers have been given that option all long, JL. They didn't even have to ask a mod to help them make those edits either. For the last 2 months or so, I've been editing thread titles on my own to fix formats that didn't include location/shipping info as a courtesy whenever I saw a thread where I could tell the location and shipping option myself. In most cases, however, those same sellers would still go on to create new threads afterward that didn't include these details. So that by itself didn't do much good, overall.
Now that we've been closing threads down the line to make sellers post new ones in the proper format.. that's been something of a hassle, but it's got their attention and their new threads are being done correctly. I'm also still here to help out with new members/new sellers or anyone else who needs assistance with their sales. Just with wider compliance to the basic requirements, I can spend more of my time doing just that instead of having to scan through all these threads, correcting so many of them myself. I think the long-term results will be much better because of this.
havent really read anything past page 1 so not sure if this was stated..
But how about having option bars for the new threads being made, similar to the not so recent "FS/FT/WTB" option. This way the person whos making the thread has no way of screwing up.
[FS/FT/WTB] [DESCRIPTION] [PICKUP/SHIPPING] [STATE]
The thread prefix (FS/FT/WTB/FREE) is easy to select because there are only 4 of them to pick from (regular members can't use the VENDOR tag). That wouldn't work for the "description" part because item descriptions vary way too much to lock the choices down to just a few selectible drop-down choices.
For that matter, pickup/shipping can also get complicated depending on the seller's preference. It could be local pickup only, local pickup preferred but shipping maybe, shipping only, or pickup and/or shipping available. Letting sellers decide how they want to phrase these options just makes it more clear and concise. They can also specify a price difference or state "free shipping" being able to type that in... such as putting, "$20 local pickup or $32 priority shipping." Drop down boxes for this portion of the title would be much more restrictive.
We would see similar limitations if we only let sellers choose from 50 states in a drop down box. Look through the classifieds forum and you'll see locations by city or region... such as SOCAL, greater Chicago area, NOLA. Members who live in those areas are used to seeing and using those acronyms so it's more convenient to let them decide how to state their location.
mods have to face the fact that there are new members joining every day, many have been part of other forums where such rules are not enforced. So these new members encountering a thread closure for trying to give away something for free, would just drive them away and change their mind on future freebies/sales on this site. This in the end hurts the site as a whole since the marketplace is held up by member contribution not the mods rules.
Once a bulk of our sellers start using the format they're supposed to, very few threads will be created that don't follow the same rules. It'll be much easier then for us to give more personal attention to new members to the site and new sellers who aren't familiar with these requirements. In those cases, it's no big deal for me to send a PM to let them know what they need to do, to offer some assistance/answer questions, or to request the missing info directly so I can edit the title for them.
We're not going to just blindly close or delete threads all the time from now on. We're in a rather strict enforcement phase for right now because that's basically what it's taken to get through to members/sellers who
aren't new to the site and who've been posting sale threads however they wanted to without bothering to read or follow the guidelines that were posted. As this continues on, we'll be able to use more discretion deciding which ones get closed or deleted and which ones shouldn't be... on more of a case-by-case basis.
