Changes to B&S discussion - SOLD BUMPS ARE BANNED - Page 4

Yeah, I agree with Holdfast. I've listed 20-30 items in a thread and had it gone from the front page in a couple of hours. Sometimes it's because of heavy traffic, but often it's because of something stupid -- recently it was because a n00b bumped a dozen ancient threads asking if items were still available, even though they clearly weren't. As a seller, that's frustrating.

That said, it's lame to use "sold" to bump a thread over and over. Certainly poor form to do it more than once a day, or to bump a bunch of threads at all once. But I try to compile multiple items in single threads to avoid taking up too much space in B&S. If I had no way to get a multi-item thread back to the top, I would have two options: Start making more smaller threads, or jack up my initial prices to give more room for price cuts. I don't think either of those is a very attractive option.

Two principles I agree with:
--The eBay links from sellers who don't offer special SF perks should go. Maybe into a separate forum. I don't understand why we're not getting first crack at the stuff anyway.
--For the most part, sellers shouldn't have more than two threads on the front page at a time, at least by their own doing. I've seen the front page dominated almost entirely by one seller who's bumped all his threads at once, or who's created a dozen threads at once. That's lame. (Sometimes older threads may get bumped by buyers, but that's obviously out of the seller's control.)

We'd have less need for new rules if people would just have some consideration for their fellow sellers.

First, fessing up: I've bumped for "sold" but I learned that trick from bigger fish and figured it was the way of the locals, will stop. That said, and being a technology person, it seems to me to be that a forum is not the right tool for a B&S environment. What sellers want is visibility - their products in front of buyer's eyeballs. Buyers, generally speaking, want to see "what is available" or - if they're frequent perusers - "what's new?" / "what's cheaper?". The fact that thread participation - which rarely contribute to availablity and only 50%'ish contributes to price - moves the item to the front page is what everyone is trying to work around (and game). It's an impedence mismatch and all the rules in the world aren't going to fix a round peg in a square hole. The "views" that buyers need and the placement that sellers need just aren't handled (well) by the current system. I wonder if the sysops (geez, is that still a term? I'm showing my tech age...) have any options with the software to better handle what we're trying to do with it. The upside for them and the community is that the proper setup wouldn't require them inspecting threads for abuse anywhere near as much. If all this sounds vague and wishy washy - think about Ebay (shudder): people can communicate about the status of items irrespective of their appearance on people's searches (by latest listed, relisted, etc.). Not saying we need a full fledged Ebay - clearly, SF has thrived on what it has at hand, but maybe we're outgrowing it? Just my .02

Agree with the second part, but unfortunately I've been a small-timer participant to the first point because in my < 6 months at SF it just looked like the way things worked 'round these parts. I didn't see anyone crying foul, so I got onboard thinking I was playing fair like everyone else (though, as a buyer, fully and guilt-ily aware I was just contributing to the bad actions that made it more difficult for me to find good buys).

I suppose I helped contribute to the "race to the bottom" so to speak. Again, it wasn't because I wanted to, but more because as a newbie it looked like that was how ti was suppose to be done.

As have I...I will stop as well. I think we both kinda viewed posting in the the thread as letting the subscribers know that they can now delete their subscription.

And getting PMed from people with 12 posts about an item that has clearly been marked as sold is really annoying.

+1

Also, please idfnl change your picture. I hate having to look at that guy's ass that often

(And I'm gay and a bear and like wool/cashmere ties [though not vintage]).

I love how this thread keeps bumping other threads off the bottom thats just really funny

To be honest, I find the 'pictures added' or 'measurements now added' bumps more sickening. I think a lot of sellers have realised that they can take advantage of this by not listing pictures/measurements originally, and then listing them with another bump. The seller gets a free bump for their own ineptitude. People have already mentioned that 'sold' bumps help threads with many items, and for this reason, I am in favour of it.

Bumping for "Sold" should not be allowed. Also, I have noticed sometimes sellers do not include measurements in the initial post. This leads to someone asking for the measurements which causes a bump. Then the seller edits the original post and causes another bump with a "measurements added" post. Again, unnecessary gaming of the system that IMO should be curbed.

oops sorry. I should have read the post above mine. BUMP.

Not gonna happen... Believe me - I've tried!

Holdfast makes a great observation that the poll is fundamentally skewed because there are more buyers than sellers...

I don't think having subcategories is going to create hassle for sellers. If anything it would help sellers sell their items faster. It's not easy weeding through the MC section, since there is so mushc, and sometimes the sizes aren't listed in the topics. I get discouraged after 1 or 2 pages browsing, unless I'm looking for my thread.

There's a lot in this post, here are a few comments. First, love your avatar, Holdfast. Can you explain a bit further how allowing these bumps discourages single lot threads of used items? Those with single used items are going to be posting them regardless of the policy on 'sold' bumps, right? I don't quite get how allowing a 'sold' bump (thereby biasing visibility towards that thread) will increase the amount of higher-quality NWT outlet content on SF. I do understand it will change how these items are listed (possibly for the better) but not the amount of it. Agree with this for sure. Definitely, high volume, highly active sellers can find ways to bump their threads and the mods couldn't possibly track them all... and probably don't want to since they drive page views here, right? So you're saying here that the OP, for example, is interested in driving down prices? Hmmm... I see, so the argument is that if you can't use 'sold' bumps, you're forced to cut price in order to bump. Really, though, I think the OP's issue is that these bumps allow sellers to keep their threads on the first page. I don't think it has anything to do with wanting to force sellers to lower their prices. I might be wrong, and I'm sure I'll find out soon if I am. I'm sure there's a strong streak of altruism in you, but on the other hand I'm sure you're a businessman. You'll likely go forward balancing the hassle of eBay with the potentially higher returns you can make there, and price your items accordingly.

Yeah, I agree with this. There has been a marked increase in "Pictures to come" and "Will post measurements later." This is galling to me as both buyer and seller. What's the point of posting a thread that has no pictures, except to drive up interest and get a free bump? I'd like to see both stopped entirely. If you're not ready to post the thread, don't post the thread.

+1 Likewise with the "Interest Check" threads

+1 to both Hold and Doc I am guilty as well, and my gut reaction is to say ban them. But the points made above are solidly convincing to me. There are a lot more lame bumps (again, guilty) that force legit and interesting sales threads to the bottom. Those seem more pressing to me in terms of regulating. What about keeping the sold bumps, but not allowing the random "sweet jacket" (yet again, guilty)? It seems to me that the most streamlined way of doing this is to only allow the seller to post with buyers pm'ing the seller for any and all questions. Rarely have I seen anything buyers or onlookers contribute be meaningful to the post. If there is an exception that arises (a buyer attesting to how something runs in size, etc...), then those can be the subject of scrutiny rather than the sold bumps.