Duplicate Threads - Do not create more than one thread to promote your product or service This is such a failed system if I can say so myself. People come to the buy and sell forum and what is up top gets seen. Posting a link to a thread does not work well because people come to the buy sell forum looking for stuff not elsewhere. If anything a system like ebay needs to be put in place where people search for what they want and not just see a large list. I mean unless you respond in others threads in the buy and sell section(which is also against the rules if you are not buying) you won't get any sales. People who do this all day but I see nothing wrong with making a new thread once a week which should be the rule not "NEVER AGAIN". Just my opinion. I just think the system needs a reboot as it is a failed system for a forum so big.
Putting the link in your sig works perfectly well for other people, and not only from posting in the BST sections. In fact, personally I've found most of the higher paying clients here come through my sig links from discussion areas - not BST posts. But those are the rules. No duplicate threads. If your thread gets legitimate interest (as in reviews post-deal), it'll be naturally positioned well. The best thing you can do if you want your own threads to rank higher is to report all the bumps and dupes that don't belong there, which are burying those threads which do follow the rules. We rely on member reports to help us find them. The fact that the forum is so big is precisely one of the reasons allowing duplicates wouldn't work. If you could create another, so could everyone else. It would just get buried again with those dupes plus new offers, and if anything new offers would get less exposure initially w/ those new duplicate threads. Same reason it's not an excuse to let people bump. If one person does it, everyone will want to do it, and it just makes a bigger mess without addressing the concern of getting buried at all.
Hmmm... interesting suggestion. So we should charge a listing fee and take a % of the sale is what you are saying? I do think that would cut out a lot of the spammers...
Wow it got reopened and I got complemented on my suggestion. I feel special lol. Well I thought about a paid system. Maybe only if something actually sold though. I make some posts and get no replies. Of course if it was only 5 or 10 cents it would be no big deal. A system like ebay would clear up the mess. Make the listings vanish after a couple of days of no posts and poof clutter is gone. Only allow people to post the same system or rather in the same category twice a week. That also would get rid of the clutter. Monetize the site more. Honest sellers like me would pay a bit if we could get rid of the clutter and make more sales at the same time. No scammer/spammer would put in a credit card or whatever and pay to post a for sale thread.
How does that get rid of clutter? Seems like it adds to it since they can only post whatever it is once as it is.
As if people listen to the post once rule. If you made it where peoples threads would die off after so long they could post it again later. I am thinking of a ebay system. People could pay to post it again. After a while it would just become "locked" or something. edit Like you could make the buy sell thread go to a ebay clone type sister site. Seriously it could be done in a flash. Those scripts are cheap. Consider it.
I would definitely be in favour of a pay system or paid memberships...however, I would hope to get a moderator discount, at least. I'd at least want the ability to change my own title.
Yeah I mean our stuff gets totally buried in like no time. MORE Categories and a SMALL listing fee would be awesome. You could still have a freebies section where it would be free to post in. Just make sure it had a lot of categories. Maybe even a site like craigslist. Rather simple and they make those scrips too. I am not sure how it should look but weeding out the garbage would be great for us real sellers. It would make the forum money too and be SOOOO worth it. They could SEARCH for what they want instead of looking so hard. It would teach people to use good keywords like on ebay. Plus you could always also chose some categories and dig.
+1 on the ebay clone setup. I and many others would willingly pay for a listing if we can stop having to compete with the junk/spam/scam threads. Plus with all those gone, traffic to legitimate listings would certainly sky rocket I have posted ONE thread in the programming section offering some services, the amount of money it has made me is unbelievable ($1.5k+). I would certainly have been willing to pay $1-$5 to list it. However, I 100% disagree with taking a percentage of a sale. It's not your product/service, why should you be taking a cut? If i sell a site for $500 that i have worked on for months, why should you take anything more than the listing fee from me? It would be unfair. I really look forward to seeing this implemented. I would also be up for something like paying a monthly fee to be able to even use the BST.
Yeah a part of the sale would be a no go. Profits are tight at it is for some here. I don't even want to think of a 1-5 buck listing fee as that is tooooo much. Seriously just like 10 cents would be fine. The forum does not make ANYTHING now so think of the profits from all the legitimate sellers. Like I said it is not like it would be expensive or even take long to implement. digitalpoint.com/buyselltrade I can see it now. People would thank you guys for doing this.
Yeah but that brings up old threads that the people may not even offer the service anymore. We need a system like ebay where searching would only bring up ACTIVE threads.
I can't edit the original post after a few hours of posting. What if I needed to change the price or add new features to my product. I know I can make a new post in the same thread, but some times people don't even open the thread, they point the mouse on the thread's title to see the content of the original post only. I think we should be able to create new threads after a few days or so.
Paid system would be ideal... on the surface. But at the same time, we don't have adequate staff to take on all of the added responsibilities that would lead to. The moment money is involved, responsibility increases (as in being forced to look at disputes between members), because now those listings are paid for. It wouldn't stop people from misclassifying things. It wouldn't stop people from posting inappropriate things (like warez). It wouldn't stop people from leaving inappropriate comments or accusations of scamming (when they haven't taken part in that particular deal. And because someone paid for the listing, you'd better believe the bitching to us would increase (like if someone pays to list warez and we delete the offer). It doesn't really matter that you can throw something in the rules and say tough shit if you choose to break them. The potential drama involved is just too high. If Shawn wanted to deal with all of those issues himself, I'd say cool - good for him - go for it. Same if he increased the moderator team threefold or brought in someone full-time to deal with payment and customer service crap so it wouldn't fall on mods. But the increase in issues that would likely lead to is way too much to ask of the small volunteer team we're currently working with.
If you start charging a listing fee (and taking % from the sales), you will kill DP Marketplace, and eventually the whole DP. DP is at the moment unique, because it is both free and has more members by far than any other similar forum. That makes DP attractive. Of course, there are a lot of spammers, but what can you do... What I suggest is to offer us an option of buying highlighted (or sticky) threads. But please don't charge a listing fee, because it will never work. Just look at what SitePoint did by switching to Flippa (and starting to charge for everything)...
Sitepoint may charge but they have some of the best buyers around from what I hear. They charge too much though.
Charging a listing fee would require a great deal more moderation. It would require more moderators and more of their time. If it's something that's even being considered, I would suggest hiring additional mods, but starting the new mods out on the easier sections of the forum, NOT BST, and allow the more experienced mods to keep an eye on BST. And the mods that are in the BST area should get some sort of incentive like free listings, etc. because they will have to be a part of member disputes and that will be a difficult task. But a paid system would be a good idea. Maybe I would actually browse and use the BST area instead of merely being an observer....
I very rarely post here publicly although I'm a regular. I would still like to chime in on this though. I agree with dmi. The suggestion of buying a sticky or highlighted post is a good compromise. It needn't be an "all or nothing" deal as to whether it's paid or unpaid. I do feel however it would be grossly unfair to put more pressure on the mods than there already is. With all due respect, you may choose not to cowsgonemadd3 and that's up to you. Believe it or not, some others do follow the rules. Duplicate threads are unfair to those very posters that don't make duplicates, bump their own threads nor ask others to do so by replying. Having a duplicate thread has the same effect as the last two actions I mentioned - it brings your post to the top. I can't see why should it be treated any differently than any other form of bumping. Members can't just pick and choose which rules they will respect and which ones they won't. Duplicate threads were just a way to circumvent the existing bumping rules and duplicate thread posters knew it. Everyone wants their thread to be at the top, of course they do! Does that mean that not playing fair is justified then? Not to my mind. It's just wrong, plain and simple, and the ones that get hurt the most are the ones that do follow the rules as their threads get buried. Duplicate threads also make it very tiresome and time consuming for those of us that come here looking for work when we see the same threads over and over and over clogging the board. Personally I don't have hours to spend sifting through them. I can't imagine it endears these sellers to the buyers either. They also have to waste their time rereading something they read before and had already chosen to pass on. On the question of having to edit details, that I can see as being an exception as to why you'd need to bump your own thread with a post. I don't think editing is a good idea of an original thread anytime in B/S/T after a few hours. It would be too open to abuse. There's no way of knowing if for example a buyer had offered to pay a rate of $0.15 a post then altered it to say $0.10 after work had begun, or a seller had upped their rates after acceptance. I don't know what the answer is. But I don't think allowing duplicate threads is it. What's needed and lies at the heart of this issue is this: members need to have more respect for the rules and do what's right for the betterment of the community as a whole, not just what would be self-serving. I'm done. Bet you're all glad I don't post much. LOL.
Good idea for the members of USA & Canada. But so far I've seen there are lots of members from rest of the world, and its not easy to send money outside of the country, specially from south & east asia. I've seen many web designer & programmers as well as content writers come here to sell their items, if DP begin to charge simply their works will die. They come here because they can't use Ebay as it charges. If DP begins to charge then many of them have to leave. Anyway the idea is good for lessening spams.