New Classifieds Feedback and Bug Hunting

[Deva]

I never understood the point of forum feedback... you make a suggestion (Zeroin IS the place to go to sell stuff and it’s not just me that thinks it) and you get the typical “bleh bleh we don’t need that!” attitude. 

Zeroin IS better for buying and selling. 10 seconds after the lights got turned on the only section being posted in was the sales. It’s not got any magic discount code or anything like that, it’s just better laid out. This forum is great, but it needs to start listening  

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Just so you know, my response to this is informative - I don't hold the keys here anymore.

It's very hard to please all parties here, you may have an idea, but there's 15,000 members who haven't posted their opinion on this. Do they agree, do they not? Zero In works for Zero In because that's what people on Zero In are used to. If you migrate from there, you probably have a hard time adjusting.

The current forums are laid out based on the theory that over-categorisation leads to a lack of trust as a lot of forums/categories can look empty. This leads to.. "no one uses this, I don't want to buy from there", "this looks like bad advice, no one really contributes". As a forum that was growing, this proved to work very well. These comments have arisen in the past, and for sure, there may now be room for improvement (always is!). This wouldn't be the first time that the sales section would have been split up into more categories. I think the response is that the guys are happy to change and update, but just jumping straight to someone else's solution because it's "perfect" doesn't make it the same here.

I hope you aren't dissuaded from leaving feedback, because it's an important part of any community, but the guys have a very fine balance to run. As soon as any change is created, people will react instantly.. they'll get used to it (although they don't like to be told so), and that will be the new ideal.. until someone comes along and tweaks things again.

I trust the guys to make the right decisions on balance based upon their knowledge of the community history and how things have gone before and I would encourage you to do the same. This is the only place that does that.. we haven't been down for 5 months, had an insecure website, advertise our own business/run and agenda or have old fashioned rules.. that's come about from a flexible administration.

 

[Samurai]

Sorry if it has been mentioned but please add filtering if possible. Maybe with saving the set of filters and maybemaybe a notification when something gets posted that matches the filter.

 

[Guest]

Personally, I like the Classifieds categorisation as it is, simple and effective

 

[Gepard]

Perhaps the ability to tag the item under multiple categories would hit two birds with one stone? 

 

[Wo1f]

I’m not saying “Zeroin is bestest”. This forum does a lot of things much better. Instead of my opinion I’ll give you some facts..

in the one day Z1 has been up there have been 38 new classifieds just in weapons, not including wanted/swaps or any accessories or gear. This is on a forum that has 1 new post.  

There is no downside to extra categories. Sure some are redundant like gbb lmg or HPA pistol, but for the most part they work great. When things of the same nature are pushed together you stop getting stupid prices. I saw that just yesterday with a GHK g5. Someone else advertised one for £100 less and all of a sudden the dreamer dropped his price and it became competitive. 

If you want a loaf of bread in Tesco, do you want to go straight to the bread isle or do you want to go searching through the 40 ‘food’ isles?

if someone wants an electric sniper/DMR for example.. on Z1 i click on the category and I’m met with m110’s, SVD’s, PSG-1, sr-25 etc. I don’t have to wade through 14 pages of combat machines to find one. Or worst not go back far enough and spend too much, only for someone to bump a better offer after their 7 day period. 

If theres enough variations of a catagory, there’s no reason not to have one. There’s is NO disadvantage to a more refined choice. We’ll get better and more competitive prices and easier searches without having to have the bump police out in force, because things won’t get buried after a day. 

I dont know if this this is an option due to the nature or layout of the forum. I don’t know how they work on the technical side, but let’s not kid ourselves and say it’s better to look through 20 pages in the hopes that we find what we’re looking for.

 

[Guest]

...stuf.........There’s is NO disadvantage to a more refined choice.......... more stuff

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I beg to differ sir. I often have no idea what gun I want, or even if I want a new gun, so browsing only three sections is MASSIVELY easier than trying to browse 137 different ones. Search function wouldn’t help, I don’t know what I’m looking for 

rdb

 

[Duff]

I beg to differ sir. I often have no idea what gun I want, or even if I want a new gun, so browsing only three sections is MASSIVELY easier than trying to browse 137 different ones. Search function wouldn’t help, I don’t know what I’m looking for 

rdb

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I remember a youth mispent reading the laminated book of dreams....

 

[Wo1f]

I beg to differ sir. I often have no idea what gun I want, or even if I want a new gun, so browsing only three sections is MASSIVELY easier than trying to browse 137 different ones. Search function wouldn’t help, I don’t know what I’m looking for 

rdb

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But you can’t design a ‘store’ to that customer. If it’s all ordered it benefits the 90% who know exactly what they want and the 10% who don’t can just hop between categories.

For the most part (excluding pistols that are used by everyone and springers) airsofters are either gas or electric. If you know you want electric, you’d have aeg, ebb? and sniper/DMR to have a look in. If I know what I want I have to go through page after page of crap. There might be my dream gun, but it’s buried and not allowed to be bumped for 7 days, at which point it’s 10 pages back. 

 

[Guest]

If it’s all ordered it benefits the 90% who know exactly what they want and the 10% who don’t can just hop between categories.

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Again, I beg to differ.  Currently, we do have it “all ordered”, just in a way that differs from what you would like.

Would you mind referencing your 90/10 split please? I’d very much like to go over the statistics.  Typically, I would expect to see some percentage of respondents replying as “can’t decide” and/or “no preference” rather than a straight split between two options. 

 

[Wo1f]

Again, I beg to differ.  Currently, we do have it “all ordered”, just in a way that differs from what you would like.

Would you mind referencing your 90/10 split please? I’d very much like to go over the statistics.  Typically, I would expect to see some percentage of respondents replying as “can’t decide” and/or “no preference” rather than a straight split between two options. 

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How is it ordered? Until the other day I had to wade through 30 we g18c’s just to find a GBBR, never mind a gas sniper or shotgun. 

Im going to assume like most airsofters you are a male. Now I may be old fashioned but every man I know knows what he wants, finds it and buys it. Some of these things are really expensive purchases. Not many people go “I have £1000 and I have no idea what I want” they decided what they want after researching and then search for that one thing. 

I just don’t get the against argument. If it stays as it is you get to look around aimlessly and people who know what they want can’t find anything and look elsewhere (which is why people are using Zeroin at this very moment  ). Or you can have a bit of structure and make it easy for people who know what they want and have no effect on you whatever. You still get to aimlessly prowl through listings, but now all of the similar things will be together.

Oh look! There’s now 4 of the gun I want in one section on one page! Now I can easily see which is the better deal! It’s like magic!....  <_<

i love this forum, I really do.. I spend hours a day on it as an active memeber trying to help and have a laugh. This is my one major gripe with it and it’s the reason me and others still venture to other places. I have whatsapp messages from yesterday or the day before asking where the best place to advertise because they knew it wasn’t going here. I’ve copied the sales links from here and posted them elsewhere (FB) and they’ve gone within the hour. It didn’t work because of the larger audience; there’s more people looking here than Z1. It worked because I posted it in a specific page that specialised in that brand of gun, because most people people want specific things. They don’t want to trawl through combat machines to find their Tm recoil. 

make it easy and convenient and people will use it more and other sites less. And when they’re used less they’ll die off and AF-UK will be ‘the’ place to buy and sell. 

Its not fucking rocket science

 

[proffrink]

So essentially your argument boils down to marginally reformatting the categories and decreasing bump time form 7 to 3 days?

I certainly agree with the first point, but I don't understand the second: If everyone is able to bump every 3 days then it's no different to 4, 5 or 7 day bumping periods as everyone is able to do it. Really the solution is - to me - randomising 'new' (i.e less than 3 days old or 7 days old?) listings on the front page so everyone has an equal chance at being at the top and - importantly - allowing people to see more information concisely through the thumbnail method currently there (which will allow one to reasonably easily scroll through and give a cursory glance to about 50 different listings in roughly 30 seconds.

Not sure if you've actually looked at the new classifieds but we've already added two sections that we never had before. I believe the only thing we're missing from your requests would be something like a support weapons and gas sniper rifle section I suppose (unless you want a complete mirror of ZeroIn's?).

You will likely always sell things faster on FB and ZeroIn - they have far bigger followings than we do here. I don't see that changing any time soon. Our classifieds really serve as a pipe for getting contributing members onboard - we cannot compete against the unscrupulous masses of Facebook or the sheer volume of clicks that ZeroIn gets. I'm just not sure that we're behind because we're missing a couple of subforums and don't allow people to spam up the front page with bumps.

I'm happy to put all of this down to a vote for sure. Could you maybe list what classifieds sections layout you'd like to see?

 

[Guest]

 ....Wo1fies very own excellent opinion....

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I will neither agree, nor disagree, but in order for us to have confidence in your new assertions, can we please see the reference for the statistics you originally quoted? 

Mod note: Moved your post as it was in the wrong thread

 

[Wo1f]

So essentially your argument boils down to marginally reformatting the categories and decreasing bump time form 7 to 3 days?

I certainly agree with the first point, but I don't understand the second: If everyone is able to bump every 3 days then it's no different to 4, 5 or 7 day bumping periods as everyone is able to do it. Really the solution is - to me - randomising 'new' (i.e less than 3 days old or 7 days old?) listings on the front page so everyone has an equal chance at being at the top and - importantly - allowing people to see more information concisely through the thumbnail method currently there (which will allow one to reasonably easily scroll through and give a cursory glance to about 50 different listings in roughly 30 seconds.

Not sure if you've actually looked at the new classifieds but we've already added two sections that we never had before. I believe the only thing we're missing from your requests would be something like a support weapons and gas sniper rifle section I suppose.

You will likely always sell things faster on FB and ZeroIn - they have far bigger followings than we do here. I don't see that changing any time soon. Our classifieds really serve as a pipe for getting contributing members onboard - we cannot compete against the unscrupulous masses of Facebook or the sheer volume of clicks that ZeroIn gets. I'm just not sure that we're behind because we're missing a couple of subforums and don't allow people to spam up the front page with bumps.

I'm happy to put all of this down to a vote for sure. Could you maybe list what classifieds sections layout you'd like to see?

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Sorry, I wasn’t suggesting we change the bump time as well. What I do we getting at is with everything in one place and a bump time of 7 days it’s very easy for a fresh add to be swallowed and vanish out of sight. 7 days would be more than fine if we had better categories. 

I dont think they they need to be as extensive a Z1 as a lot of them are redundant, but the gas/electric sniper is a good shout, and I see gas pistols and rifles are already separated now which I really like. I just don’t see the harm in a couple more. 

I would have 

rifles

aeg

gas

(possibly ebb? Tm recoils have quite the following)

pistols

electric

gas

sniper rifles

spring

gas

electric (or combine the two?)

shotguns/grenade launcher (maybe lmg? But I’m just as happy for them to go in the aeg section). 

Cant think of anything else vital from the top of my head. I think that’s perfectly reasonable. 

 

[Jedi_Master]

There is no downside to extra categories. Sure some are redundant like gbb lmg or HPA pistol, but for the most part they work great.

If theres enough variations of a catagory, there’s no reason not to have one. There’s is NO disadvantage to a more refined choice. We’ll get better and more competitive prices and easier searches without having to have the bump police out in force, because things won’t get buried after a day. 

I dont know if this this is an option due to the nature or layout of the forum. I don’t know how they work on the technical side, but let’s not kid ourselves and say it’s better to look through 20 pages in the hopes that we find what we’re looking for.

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Just for the sake of accuracy the following are the number of pages (on a PC / iPad) that you need to look through:

Electric = 7, Gas = 5, Spring = 2, Parts = 5, Gear = 2, and Swaps = 1.

So even a dream AEG is no more than 7 pages away.

A search for 'shotgun' in Gas takes 30 seconds to type the word into search bar, and brings up four results. Not hard to see what is for sale.  Having some set filters could help, however, the bigger problem is the seller themselves not giving a clear title for their sales topic to help buyers search.

Because 'TM' is only two letters it cannot be used as a search term, the minimum length for searching being 3 characters. Therefore, it does make sense to have a separate section for TM guns, and specifically TM recoil guns because they are the best, and it would keep them all in one place so that you could ignore all the cheaper crap guns.

There was a suggestion a few years back to list all sales by make so that you could ignore anything that was not TM or Krytac, and allow others to go straight to their favorite Double Eagle and Nuprol guns.

With sales topics now locked to OP only, there is no requirement for policing of early bumps because they will no longer occur; just a check on duplicate topics for those sellers who try to cheat the system by listing the same gun in different ways.

 

[L3wisD]

I've noticed a problem with the new classifieds.

I listed some bits 4 hours ago and they still haven't sold.

Sort it out guys.

3/10 would not advertise again  F-

 

[Duff]

Why do you get two threads for one listing?

 

[Gepard]

Why do you get two threads for one listing?

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Probably because there's two active classifieds. If you posted in just one a user could miss it if they only browsed the other. 

You should charge your phone btw  :lol:

 

[Duff]

Probably because there's two active classifieds. If you posted in just one a user could miss it if they only browsed the other. 

You should charge your phone btw  :lol:

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Nah I always let it go to 1%, better for the overall battery life. It can stay on 1% and still manage calls for like a day. It's quite miraculous.

 

[Guest]

Ahhhh, I have a suggestion. I really don’t like the way members can delete everything, including pictures, on a for sale post as soon as they have sold the item.

It might be completely legit, but I don’t see why you would want or need to.

Personally, I’d be much happier if members where not able to edit their classifieds. It works very well on a couple of other forums I’m on.

rdb

 

[Duff]

Ahhhh, I have a suggestion. I really don’t like the way members can delete everything, including pictures, on a for sale post as soon as they have sold the item.

It might be completely legit, but I don’t see why you would want or need to.

Personally, I’d be much happier if members where not able to edit their classifieds. It works very well on a couple of other forums I’m on.

rdb

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This ^ when I bought my Glock I was 99% positive it said the fps was sub 300, of course the advert details were long gone once I found out it was nearer 400.