• 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.
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    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.

BOI Grand Jury

bwt501

bwt501

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In light of many recent premature and unwarranted Bad Guy posts on the BOI, perhaps a Grand Jury like system in where a committee of appointed individuals privately pre-screens the complaint to determine if it merits elevation to the public forum. This committee would not judge or deliberate, just deem it legitimate to proceed. Its standards can be extremely lenient so as to not refuse even the most minor of wrongs, however it would still have enough teeth to prevent obvious nonsense from becoming a public black eye for the recipient. It would also force a built in cool-down period, which we have seen resolves many issues and non-issues. This idea obviously can be altered or modified to fit the needs of the site, but I think something along these lines would alleviate much of the problems posed here lately.
 
bwt501 said:
In light of many recent premature and unwarranted Bad Guy posts on the BOI, perhaps a Grand Jury like system in where a committee of appointed individuals privately pre-screens the complaint to determine if it merits elevation to the public forum. This committee would not judge or deliberate, just deem it legitimate to proceed. Its standards can be extremely lenient so as to not refuse even the most minor of wrongs, however it would still have enough teeth to prevent obvious nonsense from becoming a public black eye for the recipient. It would also force a built in cool-down period, which we have seen resolves many issues and non-issues. This idea obviously can be altered or modified to fit the needs of the site, but I think something along these lines would alleviate much of the problems posed here lately.
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I'm not sure such a group would work here. The way it works now is that anyone can bring their claims/experiences here and readers can judge for themselves.
Many claims have validity, some do not.

Usually spiteful or baseless claims get ferretted out quickly by readers and there is value there, because the community can also choose whether they further trust or would want to do business with the spitemonger.

There are indeed premature claims, where there would be no issue if the parties worked together, but isn't that itself a valuable piece of information for readers? I would not want to do business with someone who cannot even try to work out any differences or problems, whether it be with a buyer or seller.

Deliberate bearers of spiteful tales or lies may find, and justifiably so, that fewer people want to buy or sell from them in the future, which in many cases sort of self polices the process since readers are apt to be merciless with someone who lies just to step on another's good reputation.

In addition, the appointed individuals and the appointer would come under fire as, inevitably, the group moves to another site to air their grievance and cast aspersions on any no bill. There would be charges of favoritism, crony capitalism, and all manner of insults hurled by either side at the committee's members and one side or the other would then loudly disagree with the committee's decision.
 
Point taken. Then perhaps the"Bad Guy" title and red-X can be voted on. The complaint can be presented as usual but the title would have to be approved. I think this is the biggest gripe, the permanent stigma even though the thread played out in the recipients favor.
 
bwt501 said:
Point taken. Then perhaps the"Bad Guy" title and red-X can be voted on. The complaint can be presented as usual but the title would have to be approved. I think this is the biggest gripe, the permanent stigma even though the thread played out in the recipients favor.
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Voted on by who? Does that mean the party with the most friends (voters) wins? If the voters are an appointed panel, you have the same problems as the committee idea, above.
I see your point, and I empathize, but the current system although not perfect, works. I think many who use the threads to decide whether to do business with a certain individual do read the thread through, I certainly would.
 
It would be a great idea if we weren't working with kids and crazies (not that all kids are bad, some are more mature than the adults). By, as Lucille said, sometimes a totally baseless claim by the OP tells us not to deal with him/her, as well as proving that the 'accused' will go over and above to make thing rights in the event of an honest mistake.

Noelle
 
I dont think a committee to decide what gets on the BOI is a good idea. The whole ideal BOI is that anyone regardless of status in the hobby can bring a complaint to the BOI. If it's meritless or ridiculous, it shows the hobby about the OP. If it's a legitimate complaint, it informs the hobby about the 'bad guy'.

A committee would either have to approve every BOI post to go through, or it becomes a popularity contest where anything not sent through is brought up as a "you're just friends with them!" complaint. Also, that would be judging, as in judging what is worthy of a bad guy red flag or not.

Popularity contests have little to do with reality or justice at times. The BOI is normally all about proof, and without any proof, or with a petty complaint, the OP is usually shown as a bad guy themselves.
 
I'm sure volunteers for such a task would evaporate once it is pointed out to them that they can be held legally liable for any thread they judge as being worthy of a BAD GUY label and then posted publicly. That's how we now dodge that liability. We don't filter what is posted on the BOI. Once you do so, you run the risk of legally becoming a co-author of what anyone else may post that you allow through that filter. You are, in effect, agreeing with the poster of the thread, and judging as a FACT that what they are posting is the truth.

And no, such a task could not be done by a group of anonymous persons. Because then that liability mentioned above would default to ME as admin of this site. :NoNo:
 
I've yet to read a BOI thread where I can't, all by myself, figure out who the bad guy is, if there is one. I certainly don't need a "super-committee" to decide for me if a BadGuy post is warranted or not. In the long run, every thread on here teaches me something about both the OP and the subject of the thread... and often some of the other respondents. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
 
Lucille said:
Voted on by who? Does that mean the party with the most friends (voters) wins? If the voters are an appointed panel, you have the same problems as the committee idea, above.
I see your point, and I empathize, but the current system although not perfect, works. I think many who use the threads to decide whether to do business with a certain individual do read the thread through, I certainly would.
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Not necessarily. The group of judges could be made up of new members. They could take a test. Then after, say, 2 month's, they could be replaced with fresh judges.
 
Adam did you read post 11?
 
What if the original poster and the target of the post agreed along with at least one moderator that the post was premature or not warranted? Then, they would contact a second moderator and the post could be removed. In this manner, the complainant, the object of the complaint and a moderator have to agree that the post was unnecessary. The moderator can be just a rubber stamp to ensure that there is no payoff to remove a post.

Hopefully, there can be a solution because it really looks bad when someone gets pages of comments and the thread is not necessary and even the OP admits it. These premature or unwarranted posts really could hurt an innocent person because not everyone doing a search is going to read all of the threads. They will just see "bad guy" with a bunch of pages and assume that the person is a scammer.

There also seems to be an unusual amount of unwarranted posts lately. It seems like anyone who just doesn't like someone else is now starting bad guy threads. This is supposed to be about business transactions, not a popularity contest.
 
Anybody with a real interest is going to read enough of the thread to see if is premature or umfounded. Again I say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
 
Yeah.... I would think that anyone considering spending their hard earned money with someone with one or more threads in the BOI is going to read ALL they can before plunking down their money. Regardless of the length of those threads. GOOD GUY threads have turned bad on the target and BAD GUY threads have turned completely around as REAL evidence was provided.

Quite honestly, I think it would be rather foolish of someone having the resources provided here to NOT use it to it's fullest to help them with their buying and selling decisions.
 
vadiver said:
What if the original poster and the target of the post agreed along with at least one moderator that the post was premature or not warranted? Then, they would contact a second moderator and the post could be removed. In this manner, the complainant, the object of the complaint and a moderator have to agree that the post was unnecessary. The moderator can be just a rubber stamp to ensure that there is no payoff to remove a post.

Hopefully, there can be a solution because it really looks bad when someone gets pages of comments and the thread is not necessary and even the OP admits it. These premature or unwarranted posts really could hurt an innocent person because not everyone doing a search is going to read all of the threads. They will just see "bad guy" with a bunch of pages and assume that the person is a scammer.

There also seems to be an unusual amount of unwarranted posts lately. It seems like anyone who just doesn't like someone else is now starting bad guy threads. This is supposed to be about business transactions, not a popularity contest.
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:iagree: with this 100%!!!

Yes I have read this entire thread, and I see the point that everyone is making, but let's face it. We can already see that the reptile hobby is seeing a major increase in young people, and not only that, but with the way things have been going for the last 5 years at the least, Americans are lazy...they WON'T take the time to read the bad guy posts about someone. They just see the red and turn away. And what do young people hate to do because they were forced to all throughout school? READ!

How do I know this? Well, I'm 19 years old. Not ashamed of it. I HATE to read. When it comes to where my money is going I certainly care to read through every post in a BOI thread though.
However, the 16, 17, and possibly even younger members of the site are not all on the same mindset, and if I were someone falsely accused and was losing business as a result from that I would be pretty upset.

I agree, if it aint broke, don't fix it...
But in my (and at least one other person's opinion) this is something that we'd like to see fixed.

If the accuser admits to making a "hot headed" accusation, false accusation, and so on, why CAN'T that thread be deleted? After all, isn't it just taking up space that could be used for better things??
 
the gecko geek said:
If the accuser admits to making a "hot headed" accusation, false accusation, and so on, why CAN'T that thread be deleted? After all, isn't it just taking up space that could be used for better things??
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How many times do we see something to the effect of "I'll make this right for you as soon as you delete that thread"?
What is the value of a review system if the reviews get deleted?
How would we justify to all the people that want threads deleted why we will remove some...but not theirs?
What's wrong with being responsible/accountable for what one posts online?
I thought one of the things that set this site,and the BOI, apart is that we don't just delete threads.
What about the benefit of seeing how people respond in these situations...I know I've decided not to sell to some people because of how they've gone after other sellers for minor issues (or even problems that they -the buyers- caused themselves).
 
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