Alternatives to AZ wanted/for sale??

[Pre-Flag Master]

Chronological Order

I've said it before. The one most simple thing that could be changed to rectify this problem would be to allow forum users the *option* to view threads in chronological order based on the date of the *original post* in the thread. This way the order that threads were listed would never change, regardless of when, if, or how many new posts were added to the thread - when using that option.

Fatz

 

[Pre-Flag Master]

more............

And if "chronological order" can't happen, here's my other suggestions, to be applied to the WFS section ONLY - many are repeats...

Break it up into more sections, but it should be designed to minimize overlap, so I would suggest breaking it up into: Cues FS, Shafts FS, Cases FS, Tables FS, Everything else FS, Wanted, Raffles - if raffles are still allowed (?).

Old listings could be deleted automatically, say one year from the thread's start date.

Allow the thread starter to delete the thread.

The search feature could be modified to allow for searching for words of only three letters, such as "cue". EDIT: This would help so much when searching "thread titles only".

I also like the idea of a menu that gives a set of standard required pre-fixes. But this is only helpful if the seller changes the status to SOLD when it is sold. And this would work best if the search function had an option for "searching by pre-fix".

EDIT: Perhaps the system could send an automatic weekly notice to thread starters in the WFS section, "Is it time to update the prefix of your thread / delete your thread?"

Fatz

 

[JB Cases]

How about not worrying about it?

If your item is priced to sell it will sell. If not then not.


I often see posts that are edited to read SOLD. The original price or revised pricing is not listed any more. Is it out of line to disclose the sale price? I understand that the final deal is pretty much between the negotiating parties. Maybe we PM the seller to ask about it?

My point-we see people get slammed for 'if you're selling-list a price', 'no feelers allowed-are you selling or talking?-list a price'.

How do you know the market for an item if you don't have a sense of what was a 'price to move' it? Except, when the price, new or old, goes on for months and years-that price is too high.

...I don't know the answer, but agree that items for sale move fast. 6 pages in a day, is my guess. Most of the abuse seems to come from newer members. Some from established members. Taking 'cuts' in line can be contagious when 'everybody's doing it'.

If you are a power seller-maybe a fee based section makes sense. All businesses have a 'cost of sales' nick to selling their goods.

Meanwhile, I watch the for sale section, and read 7-8 pages deep daily. Sometimes, old stuff becomes new posts with the same people.

Free always comes with some kind of cost.

ps-how long we had spell check? very helpful

I think a lot of people edit out the price because the buyer asked them too. Unless I am specifically requested to I don't edit the price. I will put SOLD in the upper right corner of post because that is the first thing that you see when you mouse over a listing or see a preview.

Spell check, yes I wish people would use it more. Personally though I have found myself spelling wrong and omitting words and using bad grammar more often these past few years. I don't know if it's because I am typing too much, too fast for my skill level or just losing brain cells. It's hard to go back and read my posts sometimes where I have so many mistakes.

I am wondering when you all talk about pages what do you mean. Sometimes I see someone say this thread is 40 pages long and for me it's only 5. I have AZ set to list 40 threads per page.

For the person who said threads should be in chronological order you can manage that yourself.

Lower left corner is a box to change how you want to view the threads and also I think in the user control panel you can change the default view order that you see.

 

[Pre-Flag Master]

For the person who said threads should be in chronological order you can manage that yourself.

Lower left corner is a box to change how you want to view the threads and also I think in the user control panel you can change the default view order that you see.

Nope, it can not be done. Just to clarify, I meant in chronological order based on the date of the *original post* of the thread, hence the order that threads were listed would never change, regardless of when, if, or how many new posts were added to the thread. (I just edited my earlier post on this for clarity). And I am just saying to have this be a "sorted by" OPTION. You could still sort by chronological order of "latest post" if you wanted to.

Fatz

 

[Renegade_56]

I don't think theres a "Fixall" that will make everyone happy, but I can see where someone could take these ideas you have and make something different, but the problem with that would be generating traffic to it.

So true,,,,,,,, I spent alot of time building a format that addresses and solves most all of these complaints, but it's only worthwhile if people use it.

 

[Renegade_56]

Here's what you can do now:

Create your sale thread.
Advertise your sale thread, by making an enticing link in your signature.
Bump your thread at the appropriate given time constraint.
Make sure you use quality photos and give ample detail.

What this forum could improve upon:

Separate the "Wanted" & "For Sale"
Create sub-forums for Cues, Cases, Cue Parts (Such as shafts & extensions), Tables, Clothing/Misc.
Set bump limits, it is possible to do on this forum as it has been done on similar forums using the same VBulletin system.
Bump limits take away the need for moderators to search out for these threads.
Add thread prefixes (see below)

WTS=Want to sell
WTB=Want to buy
WTT=Want to trade
SOLD=Item has been sold
SPF=Sold pending funds

This is just my proposal.

You mean something like this,,,,,, http://www.classifiedbilliards.com/mybb/forumdisplay.php?fid=389
All the filters and Thread Prefixes are already there, and Gallery view to boot. All that is needed is for people to use it.

 

[JB Cases]

Nope, it can not be done. Just to clarify, I meant in chronological order based on the date of the *original post* of the thread, hence the order that threads were listed would never change, regardless of when, if, or how many new posts were added to the thread. (I just edited my earlier post on this for clarity). And I am just saying to have this be a "sorted by" OPTION. You could still sort by chronological order of "latest post" if you wanted to.

Fatz

I am not sure I completely understand.

There is an option to display the posts in chronological order based on when the thread was started. So that ignores any and all bumps and only shows the threads in order of creation. You can choose to see anything from the past day all the way to the very beginning.

Isn't that what you wanted?

Here are three images showing the configuration box at the bottom and the default display mode and the by-start-date listing.

 

[Webbs Billiards]

I did alot of the same stuff with billiarddealers.net and even included a chat box for those who just wanted to talk...but its just like Renegade says..its useless unless people use it.

 

[cuesblues]

Since some people don't seem to get it, AZ Billiards will never be anything like Ebay or Craigslist.
For all you guys that want to buy new production stuff go to Ebay please.
For all you guys that want to sell new production stuff go to Ebay please.
We don't need to establish a bunch of sub-forums just because a few el-cheapo's want a free Ebay.
As far as you guys that think this should be in any way similar to Craigslist, with chronological order, please just go to Craigslist and sell your stuff.
This is not Craigslist or Ebay, this is more of a collector sight where people go to buy & sell personal used billiards related items, custom hand crafted items, and it would work just fine if we could get rid of the clutter and all of the trunk-monkey merchants looking for a free ride.

 

[JB Cases]

I did alot of the same stuff with billiarddealers.net and even included a chat box for those who just wanted to talk...but its just like Renegade says..its useless unless people use it.

Well, if we are all real about this then we realize that AZB didn't just get to the size it is because of it's existence. The fact of it is that at one time there were many forums for pool with the traffic split between them.

But as those forums either disintegrated like Rec.Sport.Billiards or the BD forum people gravitated here. And content attracts users. In other words it's a process to attract and keep users.

AZB was never really "marketed" as far as I know. Mike never went out to advertise the forum. AZ Billiards was a site dedicated to Arizona Billiards and the forum to Arizona billiards topics. But of course it's much more now to understate things.

So if you are going to start a competing forum, because that's what any other forum is, how do you attract users without using AZB to do it? A conundrum isn't it.

Making up a forum is EASY. Keeping it up is hard. People want to be read and to converse. You can build all the neato gee-whiz features you want, you can make your forum "better" but it's not a Field of Dreams type deal where if you build it they will come.

Because the internet relies on links and search engines to function. So AZB's forums grew organically without any extra effort to market them. What about yours? Well it simply takes time and networking to raise awareness. But unless something drastic happens this is where it's at.

Frankly I would probably have never posted on AZ had RSB not been destroyed by a feud and spam. So unless AZ implodes this is it really as the place with the most traffic and eyeballs. You all ought to consider yourselves lucky that you have a FREE marketplace with so much traffic.

Be careful what you wish for because you might get it goes the Chinese proverb.

 

[Webbs Billiards]

That would be true if my site was built with the idea of competing with AZ. I used it as an example. Its designed to be used by dealers and their business counterparts.

 

[cueporn]

I've said it before. The one most simple thing that could be changed to rectify this problem would be to allow forum users the *option* to view threads in chronological order based on the date of the *original post* in the thread. This way the order that threads were listed would never change, regardless of when, if, or how many new posts were added to the thread - when using that option.

Fatz

This is absolutely the correct solution. Then of course people will just relist to keep at the top of the chronologic list.

 

[Pre-Flag Master]

This is absolutely the correct solution. Then of course people will just relist to keep at the top of the chronologic list.

Fair point. However, bumping is considered standard practice around here. It would be the hope that "re-threading" would be an obvious abuse in most cases and members would use this approach rarely.

Fatz

 

[Pre-Flag Master]

...As far as you guys that think this should be in any way similar to Craigslist, with chronological order, please just go to Craigslist and sell your stuff.
This is not Craigslist or Ebay, this is more of a collector sight where people go to buy & sell personal used billiards related items, custom hand crafted items, and it would work just fine if we could get rid of the clutter and all of the trunk-monkey merchants looking for a free ride.

The problem exists (to at least some of us anyway), regardless of "trunk monkeys" as you call them. Most of us who ARE buying and selling "personal used billiards related items, and custom hand crafted items" are bumping threads a lot and THIS is where most of the clutter comes from.

The "chronological by original post view" *option* is an idea that is simply a means of organizing your browsing as a buyer on this forum. It would allow someone to view a thread once and move on if they were not interested. If that makes it "like Craigslist" in that one small way, then I say that's a good thing.

Also, to reiterate, it is designed as an *optional* view. People could always view FS threads or any other threads in the traditional way if they wanted to. And thanks to JB, I did figure this out too. It is already there. One more post on this pending.

 

[Pre-Flag Master]

I am not sure I completely understand.

There is an option to display the posts in chronological order based on when the thread was started. So that ignores any and all bumps and only shows the threads in order of creation. You can choose to see anything from the past day all the way to the very beginning.

Isn't that what you wanted?

Here are three images showing the configuration box at the bottom and the default display mode and the by-start-date listing.

JB, thanks for helping. There is a quirky aspect to AZ that made it difficult to know that feature was available, and your post helped me sort that out. In your post with the screen shots it showed the option for "thread start time", which I know I've never seen before because I have looked for it. And I looked for it again after your initial post.

On the lower left of the AZ pages, there is a menu where you have different options for the appearance of the AZ website. They're called "skins". In your screen shots, I noticed you use a different skin than I do, and I started to play around with those and there is the issue.

Some of the AZ skins have missing features. Here's what I have noticed so far. "AzBilliards vB 3 Style" looks nice, but no sort by "thread start time", and no "multi-quote" button in the posts, but it does display members' iTrader ratings. "Test Style" and "Default vBulletin" look nice (the same as "AzBilliards vB 3 Style"), have sort by "thread start time", have the multi-quote buttons, but no iTrader rating displayed. "Tech Two" has it all, but it's not pretty. Of course, I may have yet to notice the absence of certain features under various skins.

Bottom line is that I now know that AZ does have a sort by "thread start time" feature, PROVIDED that you are in the right skin. Or at least that's how it works on my computer and my browser.

So thanks again. Your effort to help me led me to figuring out how to get what I wanted. And I hope that this helps others as well.

Fatz

 

[cuesblues]

Although I did sell an old Volvo on Craigslist and it went quite nicely, it was a face to face cash deal.
I am totally against any changes that would resemble Craigslist in any way.
We need to build from within, not change the format and add sub-forums. Why encourage Craigslist type selling, especially with the increase of bad deals and outright scammers.
I don't really want the changes to make it more exclusive to post in the wanted/for sale section, but it would slow things down, which seems to be the original issue.
The effects would be minimal to the collectors, craftsman, custom cue dealers, tire kickers, and members who just want to contribute to the forum.
Buyers wouldn't be affected, and if they are looking for a specific item there are are few good options.
Searches on a forum for specific items can sometimes be a pain but they do work, or you can peruse the section the old fashion way which is actually a good thing.
Another option for buyers looking for a specific item is to order it somewhere else, then talk about it in the main forum, cue gallery, and review sections.
As far as new production "dealer" selling is concerned, I prefer sites like Ebay, Pooldawg, and AZ banner contributors.

 

[Pre-Flag Master]

Bottom line is that you CAN sort the WFS section (and others of course) by "thread start time". This takes care of the problem, in my opinion. You just can't do it if you are in the "AzBilliards vB 3 Style" skin.

The beauty of it is that it is a sort *option*. People can use the forum however they want.

Thanks again JB.

 

[JB Cases]

You're welcome. Perhaps someone should make it a sticky about how to customize the viewing.

I am going to to do it your way for a while and see how that works.

 

[Pre-Flag Master]

You're welcome. Perhaps someone should make it a sticky about how to customize the viewing.

I think there should just be a forum about forum usage.

I am going to to do it your way for a while and see how that works.

I think I'm only going to sort by "thread start time" for the WFS forum. I will visit the forum regularly. As I go down the list of threads, I will simply stop as soon as I recognize a thread that I have already seen. For threads in which I have any interest, I will subscribe so that I get notifications of new posts. This would be critical for updated info, price drops, etc.

Now that threads will only be represented one time for me, I am curious to see on average how many new threads will actually be started daily. I suspect I will see only about one page of new threads per day. It'll be heaven. I won't be missing anything, nor will I be seeing the same threads repeatedly - easier, faster, better.

Fatz

 

[Pre-Flag Master]

Just occurred to me...

When I SELL something, I will naturally want to bump MY threads to the top because I know that precious few other members will be sorting by "thread start time".

:embarrassed2: :grin-devilish: :groucho: :shakehead: :blush: :scratchhead: