Proposed change to Classified Rules

[dennishoddy]

Will you sell me some of yours for 12 bucks?

If I had some to sell, I would. Thats what a community is all about....as long as I was sure they were not bought for resale.

 

[midman]

Why not have 2 classified sections? one for paid membership with high post counts and another open section? Mods could focus there attention on the paid section and just ignore the other. Best of both worlds imho

 

[dennishoddy]

What you guys have to remember, is that when you suggest something that requires more work on the part of the moderators, they are mostly volunteers and don't need or want a bunch of additional things added to what they do unless it really makes sense. (Thanks JB for what you and the other mods do.)

I'll back this up 100%.
When you hold that position as a moderator, your pretty much glued to the site. Scanning all the time for site issues.

 

[Cue]

I say if a person is only here for the classifieds then ban them.

I would stop coming here if this turned into armslist with chat. At that point the community is gone.

 

[HiredHand]

I say if a person is only here for the classifieds then ban them.

I would stop coming here if this turned into armslist with chat. At that point the community is gone.

IMO, that's exactly what is taking place currently.

 

[vvvvvvv]

Hiding the sale forums from non-logged in persons is a no brainer, as that will keep bots from indexing it, etc.

From the marketing side, I would be somewhat inclined to disagree that this is a no-brainer. We get a lot of first-time traffic generated through the classifieds that yields new members, some of which go on to frequent the site. Some of our listings rank right up there with Gunbroker and Armslist on the front page of Google. Around 20% of our Anonymous user traffic comes in via the classifieds. Anonymous traffic accounts for ~30% of the site's traffic.

Overall, approximately 50% of our users return between 1 and 30 times per month, while 27% return 30 or more times per month. So I think hiding the Classifieds should be thought through at least a bit on what the impact will be for growing the community. (I do not have statistics on registration conversions at this time, but our traffic from Authenticated users grows about 5% per week, leading me to conclude that probably 15% of the overall anonymous traffic converts into a registered user.)

However, like others said, the community is the focus here, which is why I'm neutral on putting the classifieds behind an auth-wall. However, rather than base it off of post count and time since registration, why not put it behind a pay-wall? In most cases, those willing to pay a few dollars for access would be more reliable to deal with, but it does also alienate certain people who would be great participants but don't want to pay $5 or $10 for access to the classifieds section, as well as make some paying members believe they are entitled to special treatment beyond the classifieds.

Regarding gougers, this would be a reason why I would support implementing a reputation system.

 

[AKguy1985]

Raise it to 100. OKDM is like that.

 

[Lurker66]

I wont pay for a forum. Not $1. I have seen very little information on this forum that i couldnt find for free. What makes this forum unique is the "community" of Okies. Making freinds and building the community ought to stay free and not turn into a "gated" neighborhood.

I dont dig the direction of "armslist" with chat either. Raise time limit to use classifieds, raise post count slightly AND maybe make it invisible until reqs are met.

The quicker something is done the quicker the "RUN" will stop.

And get a "REPUTATION" system.

 

[mk23socom]

I am torn on this issue. On the one hand I agree that raising the minimum number of post to access classified would be a good thing but on the other I think that there are a bunch of people, like myself, who enjoy the board and have met with several member here in person but aren't big on posting unless they truly have something meaningful to contribute to a posting. I feel some of us are active participents of this board but not to the point of posting just to be posting.

 

[35 Whelen]

I've been a member for almost six years and read the posts twice daily and as you can see my post count is low.........I'm over 60 and never have been known to be a chatterbox.

I've never posted a ad or responded to one but I think full acess to the 'Classifieds' (posting a ad as well as replying to one) should be based totally on 'time served' not post count.