Planet 9

mkiv808 · #1 09-02-2008, 08:51 AM

I am not a big fan of the separated Classifieds. I think it lowers its exposure by having it separated from the forum and does not encourage a buying and selling community.

It's much easier on other forums to post wanted/selling ads, especially for parts. And there's more active discussion and participation. I'm amazed how few ads get posted in comparison to forums of similar size.

My vote is to make it its own sub-forum with categories.

Anyone else with me on this?

Gator Bite · #2 09-02-2008, 09:01 AM

I vote 'No'. Want to know why? I like the fact that the classifieds are my little secret.....

Plus, I feel that would make the club feel too commercial.

**K-Man S** · #3 09-02-2008, 09:03 AM

Nope, those forum type classifieds can't do the things that our classifieds software can do. I see new ads daily in our classifieds, we have have over a 1000. What you see in a forum is junk hanging around forever in a forum with no expiration dates, no auctioning capabilities, etc. etc. Classified item discussion happens in our forums or in the classifieds, whichever members prefer so no we won't be littering the forums with random classifieds "posts" as opposed to our nice Classifieds section.

**Krokodil** · #4 09-02-2008, 09:10 AM

I am with K-Man S and Gator Bite on this one. I do not even use the classfieds on other sites because they are so cluttered and difficult to navigate.

Cheers,

**sapentia** · #5 09-02-2008, 09:20 AM

+1 on keeping it separate, much easier for me to get to and navigate the classifieds here than elsewhere where I have to sort through the junk. It is so quick and easy I usually drop in once every do or so just to see if there is something I might want to pick up.

***Stephen_the_Red*** · #6 09-02-2008, 10:06 AM

We've got Classified Ads here?

I have too much fun reading the news and the info users are sharing. Don't have a need (yet) to go looking for more to buy or sell.

+1 to keep it separate. Thanks!

mkiv808 · #7 09-02-2008, 10:20 AM

Just one man's opinion. It works really well on Lotus Talk (I sold my car on there) and Corvette Forum, which I have been a member on for a while. Also Supra Forums. SupraForums now uses a neat system which seems to be an amalgam of what you see on here and a traditional buy/sell forum. It requires a lot of info up front, which helps. Check it out sometime.

I guess the whole point is driving traffic. In my industry, it's never a bad idea to run two different configurations and measure qualified traffic. Google Analytics FTW.

So I stick with my assessment.

Just the opinion of a biased interactive usability expert.

**K-Man S** · #8 09-02-2008, 10:30 AM

If you provide me the link to the Supra Forum I will take a look at what they use, it may not may not even be compatible with what we run here, but I'm always happy to look at various options.

mkiv808 · #9 09-02-2008, 10:35 AM

It should be. They also use vBulletin 3.7.

Those forums are hidden to non-members (which is a good thing).

As a member, they're viewed here: Supraforums.com

You can also give feedback much like on eBay, which is cool. Each user has a seller rating with comments.

**K-Man S** · #10 09-02-2008, 11:08 AM

Ok I looked at it and all the Supra forum does is simply have some forum categories with sub categories for various items, like parts ads in one sub cat, car ads in another sub cat, etc. but in essence nothing more than forum posts no different than what I am posting right now. No tracking, no ad expiration, no tagged discussions, no buyer/seller profiles or ratings (other than manually having to make separate posts in a separate sub category), no auctions, no keywords, need I go on?

I thought from your description maybe they were running some software ad-on, they are not, just a forum.

mkiv808 · #11 09-02-2008, 11:48 AM

Try posting a classifieds ad. It's more than what you described. They require a lot of upfront info. Ad expiration could easily be added, I'm sure.

It's not so much the functionality. I think the functionality here is great, so kudos on that. I just think the IA could use a little work, both from an entry-point standpoint and the format of the classifieds pages themselves. Again, just my opinion, please don't take it the wrong way.

And seller feedback is built into the user's profile. There is a seller rating forum, but that's for open discussion. The actual rating is integrated. I have a "iTrader: (5)" next to my avatar. Each of the 5 reviews has a comment like on eBay.

**K-Man S** · #12 09-02-2008, 12:13 PM

Ok, those are custom fields, we have custom fields here too, I just display them for message posts (although we could) but I do use them for things like the Registry.

I'm open to suggestions for how to improve the IA, entry point, format of classified pages, etc. some of which might be easy to do, others might mean a custom template is in order and take some custom work.