• Posted 12/19/2024.
    =====================

    I am still waiting on my developer to finish up on the Classifieds Control Panel so I can use it to encourage members into becoming paying members. Google Adsense has become a real burden on the viewing of this site, but honestly it is the ONLY source of income now that keeps it afloat. I tried offering disabling the ads being viewed by paying members, but apparently that is not enough incentive. Quite frankly, Google Adsense has dropped down to where it barely brings in enough daily to match even a single paid member per day. But it still gets the bills paid. But at what cost?

    So even without the classifieds control panel being complete, I believe I am going to have to disable those Google ads completely and likely disable some options here that have been free since going to the new platform. Like classified ad bumping, member name changes, and anything else I can use to encourage this site to be supported by the members instead of the Google Adsense ads.

    But there is risk involved. I will not pay out of pocket for very long during this last ditch experimental effort. If I find that the membership does not want to support this site with memberships, then I cannot support your being able to post your classified ads here for free. No, I am not intending to start charging for your posting ads here. I will just shut the site down and that will be it. I will be done with FaunaClassifieds. I certainly don't need this, and can live the rest of my life just fine without it. If I see that no one else really wants it to survive neither, then so be it. It goes away and you all can just go elsewhere to advertise your animals and merchandise.

    Not sure when this will take place, and I don't intend to give any further warning concerning the disabling of the Google Adsense. Just as there probably won't be any warning if I decide to close down this site. You will just come here and there will be some sort of message that the site is gone, and you have a nice day.

    I have been trying to make a go of this site for a very long time. And quite frankly, I am just tired of trying. I had hoped that enough people would be willing to help me help you all have a free outlet to offer your stuff for sale. But every year I see less and less people coming to this site, much less supporting it financially. That is fine. I tried. I retired the SerpenCo business about 14 years ago, so retiring out of this business completely is not that big if a step for me, nor will it be especially painful to do. When I was in Thailand, I did not check in here for three weeks. I didn't miss it even a little bit. So if you all want it to remain, it will be in your hands. I really don't care either way.

    =====================
    Some people have indicated that finding the method to contribute is rather difficult. And I have to admit, that it is not all that obvious. So to help, here is a thread to help as a quide. How to become a contributing member of FaunaClassifieds.

    And for the record, I will be shutting down the Google Adsense ads on January 1, 2025.
  • In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

Abusive use of ad bumping in the classifieds...

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polasian

polasian

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http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/announcement.php?f=498&a=65


Recently I was made aware of some issues concerning members spending an apparent inordinate amount of time and effort bumping their ads within the classifieds section, sometimes to the extent that it appears they were bumping the ads on an hourly basis. I do applaud their industriousness, but from a practical standpoint, there really isn't anyway I can let that sort of practice continue. I believe potential buyers WANT to see new ads as often as possible, displaying new stuff for sale that they didn't see yesterday when they browsed through those classified sections. Chances are, that if they weren't inclined to buy what they saw yesterday, they really aren't going to be suddenly inclined to buy it today when they see it again. There is also the problem that having the same ads bumped over and over again, makes the site appear stagnant, even thought there may be lots of new ads placed, but the bumping just pushed them onto the back pages so quickly that the front page makes it APPEAR that nothing new has been added.

So, no, this really isn't a good thing for this site nor most of the people posting ads here trying to attract customers.

Furthermore, one of the few perks I am able to provide in order to entice members to become PAYING members to help support this site financially, is that the Classifieds Control Panel (which, incidentally, non paying members CAN use the basic functions of) has an added perk in that those paying members can use it to easily bump and highlight their ads from a single page. The bump/highlight function does so for a number of threads per 30 day period, and is scaled such that the higher level paid memberships get more bumps/highlights, than the lower level paid memberships. Obviously, I want this to be attractive to members in order to give them incentive to spring for a paid membership. But honestly, if non paying members just go ahead and bump their ads manually by simply making a reply to their ad (normally with nothing more than "BUMP" posted in the rely), well this sure shoots the hell out of my hopes. But honestly until I started seeing this getting WAY out of hand, I really wasn't all that concerned about the paid membership aspect of it. But now that it is out of hand, then I might as well address ALL aspects of the problem now before it gets MUCH worse.

My programmer has developed some custom coding that in effect limits replies BY the author of a classified ad thread in such a way that someone else must post in that thread before they are able to make a reply. This was done in lieu of ceasing replies completely by the author so that the author of the classified thread will be able to reply to questions within that ad to correspond to potential customers. So, say for instance Joe Blow creates a new classified ad, and wants to bump that ad after there have been no replies to it. Well, that will be blocked. Unless and until someone ELSE posts in that thread, Joe cannot reply again to that ad. But if someone ELSE posts in that ad, asking something, like "What will shipping be to zip code XXXXX?", Joe is then free to post a reply in order to be able to answer that question. And then Joe will NOT be able to make another reply until there is another reply made by someone else. See how that works?

BTW, that applies to the Paid Membership Levels as well. The only authorized method any longer to bump ads is via the function offered in the Classifieds Control Panel. Which, by the way, if you haven't stumbled on that Classifieds Control Panel yet, here is how you access it -> http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/classifieds.php?. This link should be at the top of the page in your User CP page when you need it.

I will be increasing the number of allowed bump/highlights for the paid memberships shortly to make this option much more attractive to them, as the numbers I originally chose were at a time when traffic in the classifieds was much lower than it is now. Things have changed, and I need to try to keep in step with the increased needs the paid membership needs to have this fair to them for the money they spend to help out this site.

Yeah, I can hear you thinking that this is going to be easy to get around and cheat on simply by getting someone else to alternate posts with you on your ads. :NoNo: There is a new infraction in place for this sort of thing, and I have asked the mods to keep a close eye on this. The infraction level will be light at first, but increase quickly as I feel word has gotten around about this policy change. So yeah, you CAN get some free bumps before getting banned for three days. I guess for some people that's much better than paying $25....

I am considering re-enabling the Participant level membership for those people who may have only a very limited number of animals or goods to sell, but would like to at least bump that ad a few times using a legitimate method to do so.

Anyway, I'm really hoping you all will be considerate of others, and take this in the spirit I am presenting it. I'm trying to make this site as effective for as many people as possible to be able to sell what they are advertising. That means that everyone has to bend a little to share the limited resources that the first page in any classified ad forum represents. Yes, I know everyone would like THEIR ad to be at the top of the first page all of the time, but that just cannot happen. Trust me, I don't need the headaches of having to deal with something like this, so I am giving what I consider as THIS compromise a shot to see how it works out.

Also, please note that I have increased the number of bump/highlights for each of the paid membership user groups.

Contributor Level was changed from 10 to 30 per 30 day period.
Benefactor Level was changed from 50 to 150 per 30 day period.
Endowment Level was changed from 200 to 400 per 30 day period.

In case anyone is confused about how this works, this is all done via the Classifieds Control Panel, which can be accessed through your User CP page.

Each ad you bump/highlight is independent of the others, and the clock starts ticking for each ad you activate in that manner. The 30 day countdown is relevant to EACH ad separately, and this isn't a group time limit whereby at the first of the month all ads are cleared and the clock resets to 30 days. It is 30 days for EACH and EVERY ad you activate in this manner.

Again, just to emphasize this point, BUMPING is as of this moment only allowed via the Classifieds Control Panel for paid member groups. Any other bumping done will incur an infraction which can be cumulative to the point of temporarily being banned. The moderators may, at their discretion, delete either the post that causes the bump of the ad, or DELETE the entire ad if they find they are having trouble getting this point across to any particular member.

WebSlave
Click to expand...


There's an ongoing discussion regarding this policy in the feedback forum...
http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=208293
 
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