Question about sales

[Druid799]

I asked a question (which was pertinent to any one interested in the sale hence not asked by PM) about a rif for sale today , the seller came back nice and quickly with an answer and then shortly after was accused of ‘bumping’ his sale too soon and instructed to read forum rules and be awere a ‘forum warning’ would be levied for further infractions to forum rules .

Please could a member of the moderation team comment on what seemed a rather harsh response from a Mod to what I think anyone would accept was a perfectly acceptable incident .

many thanks Druid . 

 

[Samurai]

I got that message too. It's a canned response, these questions must go in PM. If it is indeed a good question, the seller can edit the original post to add it there. It's just that the mods (Jedi) is trying to keep the forums nice and clean, and we can appreciate their work by sticking to the rules.

 

[proffrink]

I'm not posting this as a mod - I resigned my moderator-ship(?) a long time ago. The reason why the tag hasn't been removed yet is probably going to be obvious in a second. Jedi will be along soon I'm sure to give an official comment, but this is my understanding;

Anyway, the primary reasoning for now allowing any posts at all outside of the weekly bump is that is becomes too messy and it's the lesser of two evils to just not allow them altogether. The 'Unread Content' feature (that's used by many members) used to be around 60-80% bumps and then a select few bits of meaningful content elsewhere. This was chiefly due to a staggering number of people having discussions in their classifieds threads (I'm talking 4+ posts long) or just assuming the rules on ZeroIn (where a bump can be made every 3 days) was true here also. There was about a 50/50 split on people being reasonable with their threads (replying only to bump reasonably or correct something in the OP) and those who were taking the piss.

That's why the decision was made to more strictly enforce the 'no bumps' and - in particular - to police discussions that could be made via PMs, people saying things like 'is this still available' or 'would you take X' made up a very significant portion of all the posts from a given week on the forums, and that was having an adverse affect on others making their classifieds (and just - by sheer chance - not getting people posting on them, buy rather PMing or taking no interest). More importantly, it was - for a few - getting really annoying that they'd have to pass over so many newly active threads when otherwise posting on the forums with nothing to do with classifieds or just checking in on their phone. These things can be disabled with some effort and a little knowledge of the forum, but it was a small gripe.

As Samurai has said: The warnings are indeed a pre-made affair made to save moderator time. In some cases they can seem harsh I'm sure, but they're intended to be functional. These are rules that - in theory - any user should know. I wasn't aware of anyone (during my tenure at least) reoffending so much that they got a ban (temporary or permanent). The zero-tolerance policy is to save time on the part of the mods and of course avoids any implicit bias on what is and isn't allowed to be posted in these threads. I for one used to enjoy people with vastly overestimated prices on their gear getting shat on by forum regulars, but that not happening anymore is a side-effect of this policy.

So here we come onto the real issue: Some time ago we requested that the classifieds subforums simply not allow posts to be made by anyone other than the original poster (OP). This is the same as ZeroIn's policy (as an example) and forces people into sending PMs. However, this never got sorted and is one in a long string of let-downs from our administrator that were the reason for me resigning. He's not got around to removing the tag though (which should probably indicate how much he actually cares about things like this getting sorted). This is a failing of the forum and I'm sure still is a huge ballache for Jedi (who has to manually review these threads a lot of the time) as much as it is for those who receive warnings and get their posts deleted. Unfortunately there are other occurrences of quality of life improvements like this just not being enacted.

 

[Gepard]

Why can't existing sales posts be configured to ignore additional comments? Or to have sales posts not appear in the feed? I'm no forum dev, but surely that's something that could be done?

@Jedi_Master told me that these features are up to the root admin @Devastator but until recently his last login was over 7 months ago. Can a moderator be give permissions to edit the forum so we can actually see some of the forum feedback implemented?

I see a huge waste of potential here and it must be really frustrating for those, including mods, wanting change but are restricted by somebody who hardly visits anymore. 

I'm not saying he has to give up his baby, but at least let some mods have the ability to change things. 

Personally I think the bump rule is a dumb idea and should be scrapped. Let users ask questions and get the answers they want so others may also see them. As Jedi likes to remind everybody, there is a search function for those after a specific item for sale and a bump does nothing to stop people finding what they want. Besides, people still bump posts regardless of a warning or not. What new user actually reads the rules? 

 

[proffrink]

Believe me I've already offered and I've done a fair amount of work with IPB in the past. Without going into too much detail, he didn't want to do it.

 

[Gepard]

Believe me I've already offered and I've done a fair amount of work with IPB in the past. Without going into too much detail, he didn't want to do it.

Sounds like he's more interested in having full control rather than distributing it and actually helping the forum. 

 

[Jedi_Master]

@proffrink has most eloquently answered this.

The "Early bump" message is a formatted one, which as it states is general and makes moderation easier. It also helps bookmark topics in the Classifieds for a pattern of early bumps. It is not a harsh response, and one that everyone receives.

For those new members who have not read the rules, the moderator message is a prompt to do so, and similarly reminds older forum members to re-read them.

The forum rules are quite clear and specific:

- You may only “bump” your topic once weekly (no less than 7 days between posts). It is quick and easy to edit your OP (i.e. adding extra information to answer a question received via a PM). Editing your topic will reduce the risk of an early bump.

Instead of posting in a Sales / Swaps topic which will cause it to 'bump' that topic just use your PM to communicate asking and answering questions. Sellers should be aware that any post, for whatever reason (especially answering questions or making a comment), that are before the 7 days is considered a bump.

 

[Druid799]

Fair enuf , totally understand the reason now ,  it’s to stop excessive superfluous posts I just though as it was a pertinent question to all viewing the sale I thought it would be ok , Lesson learned .