Streamline the Classifieds?

ianpadron

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Wanted to see what the mods and forum members think about making the classifieds section more user friendly.

Instead of one giant classified section for all gear, I think that a separate classified section should be nested under each regular forum category. Example, in the backpacks forum, there would be a sub-forum for packs for sale. In the optics forum, there would be a sub-forum with just glass for sale. And so on and so forth.

Buying/Selling things on Rokslide is one of its best features in my opinion, but the search function doesn't always work as reliably as you'd hope in the classifieds section.

I think this would be a killer upgrade for everyone.
 
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I think I remember them trying this and people wanted the old way back. Or maybe they asked and people voted to leave it alone. Anyway, It ended up this way for a reason.
 
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ianpadron

ianpadron

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I think I remember them trying this and people wanted the old way back. Or maybe they asked and people voted to leave it alone. Anyway, It ended up this way for a reason.
Idk why anyone would be opposed. The current way is a total cluster f#%! haha.

There's got to be a more intuitive approach.

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William Hanson (live2hunt)

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It was presented as a poll a while back and overwhelmingly the majority of people wanted everything lumped together. They actually did try it broken up for a little while and I agree with you that it was better but most people didn't like it.

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SHTF

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Yep as William said they tried that ended up going back to the way it is now. Personally I like it the way it is. Broken up then you have to moderate that and people posting in wrong sections. Making it easy as possible for the sellers and buyers by having it in 1 place makes it easier to search in my opinion.
 
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Honestly, it's gotten so overwhelming at this point I'd almost like it to be it's own separate forum (not topic or anything; an entire separate forum). I know this would be a lot of work to do for Ryan, but there's getting to be 3 or 4 classifieds post post to every non-classified and it's hard to filter through them as I'm trying not to spend money right now. I use the "what's new" feature to see all the posts since I last logged on and it is just littered with classified posts.

Ryan, if you do decide to try and go this route and need some help cranking this out on a weekend and maybe writing/running some SQL scripts to try and preserve all the old data then let me know and I can try to make time this winter. It might also require some customization of the php code if you wanted them to use the same user tables; not sure.
 

Murdy

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Dividing it into sub-forums works for people looking for a specific item -- i.e., if you're looking for a pack, you don't have to look through a bunch of other stuff. However, it makes browsing harder, as you have to click in and out of multiple sub-forums to see what's out there. I prefer it the way it is.

Would it be possible to do both? Have people list in various sub forums and also have one large forum that everything automatically is cross-listed in?
 
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ianpadron

ianpadron

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Leave it alone
Use search button
The search button doesn't work that well, that's the entire point of my post dude.

Do I search spotter, spotting scope, Swaro ATS, etc. There is no uniform posting language, so items get lost in oblivion and end up getting bumped (ttt) again and again.

Breaking it into subsections and assigning a forum expert on the topic to moderate it would help everybody out. There are just too many posts over there.

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ianpadron

ianpadron

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Dividing it into sub-forums works for people looking for a specific item -- i.e., if you're looking for a pack, you don't have to look through a bunch of other stuff. However, it makes browsing harder, as you have to click in and out of multiple sub-forums to see what's out there. I prefer it the way it is.

Would it be possible to do both? Have people list in various sub forums and also have one large forum that everything automatically is cross-listed in?
Love that idea.


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Leave it alone
Use search button

The phpBB (software used for the forum) search functionality sucks beyond belief. You're much better off trying to use google with site filtering.

For example if you want a sawtooth put this into google:

site:www.rokslide.com/forums/rokslide-classifieds sawtooth

What about if you it was left in one classifieds section but had some filtering tools.

I'm sure Ryan doesn't want to get into writing php code to try and customize the forum. It's pretty stock phpBB right now with maybe a few extensions.
 
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hflier

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You will miss great deals that pop up because you weren't looking at that forum for item at the time. But had you seen it you would have bought it. Say for instance someone posted a Kifaru Sawtooth for $500. Even if you weren't looking, you might jump on that. Split the classifieds apart, you won't see it and you loose.


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You will miss great deals that pop up because you weren't looking at that forum for item at the time. But had you seen it you would have bought it. Say for instance someone posted a Kifaru Sawtooth for $500. Even if you weren't looking, you might jump on that. Split the classifieds apart, you won't see it and you loose.

This happens anyways with the main one. You can create a google alerts filter to solve this problem though.

Go to google alerts and create a filter as follows:

site:www.rokslide.com/forums/rokslide-classifieds sawtooth

Change the frequency to 'as it happens' and how many to 'all results' and you will get an email whenever a sawtooth gets posted for sale.
 
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ianpadron

ianpadron

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The phpBB (software used for the forum) search functionality sucks beyond belief. You're much better off trying to use google with site filtering.



I'm sure Ryan doesn't want to get into writing php code to try and customize the forum. It's pretty stock phpBB right now with maybe a few extensions.
Exactly. I don't think most guys on here understand how archaic the search function really is. Too many items slip through the cracks because the search field won't grab the right info.

Maybe a new classified posting procedure where you are required to "tag" items with pertinent keywords AND abbreviations...

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Exactly. I don't think most guys on here understand how archaic the search function really is. Too many items slip through the cracks because the search field won't grab the right info.

Maybe a new classified posting procedure where you are required to "tag" items with pertinent keywords AND abbreviations...

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Agreed, but you think this place is archaic, take a stroll over to Monster Muleys. Good gawd.
 
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