Back in Mid-September I started a thread asking for suggestions for improvements to BayouShooter. The results and suggestions that we got were overwhelmingly positive. Out of the hundreds of submissions that we received via PM and on the public forum, I, with the help of the site staff, implemented over thirty suggestions for improvement publicly and dozens behind the scenes. Now it is time again to see about bringing in more ideas and tailoring this wonderful place more so around what YOU, the members, want.
In the first thread where I asked for suggestions, we did not allow people to debate the ideas or suggestions. In this thread, I encourage comments on other people's suggestions. Hopefully with a little debate and discussion we can get some awesome ideas out of everyone. If you would not like your idea to be posted publicly, please PM it to me and you will remain anonymous (and I will post the idea to be discussed). If you have any questions, please feel free to respond to this thread or to PM me.
I look forward to hearing from everyone!
Thanks,
Austin
***EDIT - READ THIS POST BEFORE COMMENTING HERE*** - CLICK HERE
Oh boy! I am gone for 24 hours and 8 pages pop up. Damn guys. Good job! I will respond to some quotes I picked out below and then offer some general comments below the last quote.
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Now that I have finished responding to a few recurring ideas, I have a few things to say:
1) I am open to allowing comments back in the classifieds. For now, lets QUIT discussing it in this thread. We know lots of y'all want it back. I am going to work on putting something together that would allow comments, but make it work better than in the past. If you really have something to say, PM me. For now though, NO MORE DISCUSSING COMMENTS IN CLASSIFIEDS IN THIS THREAD>
2) The like system someone mentioned above - I would like opinions.
3) Any new ideas that y'all have would be great. Now that we aren't discussing comments in the classifieds anymore, I urge all of you who have participated in this thread to put on your thinking caps and see if you can come up with any other ways to make the forum better. Simple or complex, let us know.
4) Chat system: Has been tried in the past and failed. I am going to veto this one for now.
5) I think I caught all of the new ideas suggested in the 8 pages, but if I missed one that you posted (as in I didn't comment on it), please quote it again so I can mention it.
6) As I said above - everything being discussed here is also being discussed in the moderator forum. Ultimately, we have to implement any ideas that you guys like. If anything worth mentioning comes up, I will most certainly make sure to inform everyone here. Thanks for the cooperation guys
7) Lastly, I am still receiving PMs from people. If I haven't responded yet, I will soon. I have a quite a few to go through and not too much time on my hands tonight (it's 12:10 AM already). Don't think I forgot about ya!
Thanks again guys!
In the first thread where I asked for suggestions, we did not allow people to debate the ideas or suggestions. In this thread, I encourage comments on other people's suggestions. Hopefully with a little debate and discussion we can get some awesome ideas out of everyone. If you would not like your idea to be posted publicly, please PM it to me and you will remain anonymous (and I will post the idea to be discussed). If you have any questions, please feel free to respond to this thread or to PM me.
I look forward to hearing from everyone!
Thanks,
Austin
***EDIT - READ THIS POST BEFORE COMMENTING HERE*** - CLICK HERE
Oh boy! I am gone for 24 hours and 8 pages pop up. Damn guys. Good job! I will respond to some quotes I picked out below and then offer some general comments below the last quote.
Not true. You are misremembering or misreading the rules. There is no us vs them attitude. If you have ANY problem with ANY moderator or administrative behavior, PM the MOD. If that doesn't help, PM me. If you still have a problem, PM Spanky. If you are upset with something spanky did, PM him and me. All issues are discussed and no complaints are just brushed away. You say that you find posts not helpful or whatever...PM me about them. Send me links. Our system behind the scenes is super organized. I wrote up a multi-page document that the mods follow to the T. In summary - if you think a moderator is stepping out of place, you need to talk to them about it, and if that doesn't work, talk to me about it. PM me or email me. austin at this domainname dot com.I can not find where the rules are listed now. So bear with my memory here, please.
Rule 9 says something to the effect that no user may question a mod or admin either in public or private for an decision that has been made. I find that rule to be highly offensive. I goes counter to the very core of beliefs. It creates an us versus them.
I have found that the moderators do not adopt a helpful tone to the posts. The tone I freqently read is do what I say b/c if you don't you must be stupid. They get very confrontational and takes things way too personally.
This doesn't absolve a user from also having the same problems and they should be handled consitantly the same way. Not one way for one who's a friend and another for someone people don't like. The rules must be fair and evenly inforced with out prejudice.
Some of the moderators as not very good at this. I asume that you are aware of this problem b/c you have handle quite a few of their decisions after they are made.
Also a mod can with out talking to the user award penelties. In some cases they penelties have been removed after the fact. That sounds to that mod's judge someone guilty and start the punishment without ever talking to the individual. The rights of the individual are sancrosant in the country. If a mod has a problem they should go to someone else to discuss it. They that other person should talk to the person who caused the problem. Then if a punishment is warrented it should be placed not by the original moderator.
A system like one above would reduce knee jerk bull crap and hopefully make the various punishments uniform to the misbehavior.
Dave
Not true. I am leaning towards allowing comments back in the classifieds section. We will discuss options on ways to make it work internally for now and then will come forward with feasible options and let the community decide what they want. Read that again everyone.It seems like you already have you're mind made up, so I'm sure this comment will amount to a pile of beans but I'd like to see comments back in the classifieds. Like I said, you asked for suggestions and 70% of these comments are about this. I really don't see a problem with opening a poll and letting the board members vote on the issue. It seems to me if I moderated the board and 3/4 of the board were asking for something, regardless of if I as a moderator consider it a solid idea I would look into implementing it. As Neil09 said, this is place seems to have slowed to a crawl except for the handful of about 10-15 members that post all day. None of which is entertaining.
I am heading all of the changes on the board right now. Myself and the moderators are discussing options behind closed doors. They are invited to speak up just like any other member, but I am not forcing them to.No offense to be meant by this but why dont we talk to all of the mods on comments being allowed in the for sale section.
Would it even matter or would we all be wasting our time trying to talk to yall about the idea of allowing it again?
Again no offense meant I'll drop it from here on out just be straight with me and I wont bother mentioning it again.
My point of view on it is the same as Leonidas.
I like your last idea. That is a possibility and will be discussed.I dont want to beat a dead horse by any means but since it was asked I'll respond.
I like the idea of having responses in the Classifieds section. I have found myself listing less and less items for sale since that ended, instead turning to other outlets to sell. I think I post pretty decent ads with good photos and information but I got tired of the PM's. Its easier (for me) to respond to the ad. I admit its a bit of laziness on my part. I could probably go in and edit the ad and be done with it but I just found that annoying and instead of bringing up the forbidden subject on the board I just listed elsewhere. And the "your price is too damn high" and "thats a sweet gun" never really bothered me as a seller or a buyer. I actually sold a few items faster when people who "great gun" bumped me. Just my $0.02.
Edit to add: What about having two classifieds for a set period of time. One that allows comments and one that does not. Give it, say, two or three months. See which classified section gets more ads put up. If the "no comments" classifieds get more then I'm pretty sure most people would shut up about it.
I like your second point the most. The other ideas are difficult to moderate and enforce. If you want someone to post more specific information, just PM themI believe that the following changes would benefit the forum:
Only one firearm per ad.
Firearm and price clearly shown in title
Specific minimum information required in firearm ad (example: Price, Manufacturer, Model, Caliber, Barrel length, Trades (yes or no), etc)
Classified ads without pictures will not happen and is not up for debate. Yes on sponsors being able to post ads in the classifieds section. I am going to work on some rules for the sponsors to keep them from spamming the place though. When I say I, I mean Jack mainly. He is good at that. Advertising the site. Yes. That will happen in the near future. There are some things in the way right now, but I do have plans to work on that. More to come on that later though.1. Keep comments out of the classifieds. The biggest problems with comments are what people decide to post. Way too much thread crapping. I loved that AR15 thread 03protege(even though the best one was "Stop BSing in the classifieds section-it was epic) listed but the fact is you can ask what you want. If someone is foolish enough to buy something like that without doing the research, shame on them. I have never seen the guys who gripe about high prices post something like" Hey man, you could get another $200 out of that gun- you should kill this ad and repost it for more." Also, too many people want to discuss how good/bad something is. Nothing like trying to sell an Eotech and getting a big post about how Eotech's are crap. Now, If the OP could delete threads that MIGHT be a good solution.
2. Allow classified ads to be posted without pictures. I'm not sure why this was done but it makes it a bit harder for me to post items. If someone really wants a pic I can email it or post it later. I think this would go a long way to increasing the number of classifieds posted. It also makes it easier to post several smaller items.
3. Sponsor's ads with regular classifieds. Love it. Honestly I rarely look in the Sponsor's classifieds. I think it gives the Sponsors a bigger bang for their buck. I would, however, identify a sponsor from an individual.
4. Advertise the site. This is not so much an issue with the site but one of expanding the site. I live in Leesville. Most subscribers are in the BR/NO area. Maybe advertise on bookoo.com, ar15.com, louisianasportsman, etc to increase the number of subscribers around the state. Also a good presence at gunshows would be a great idea.
5. A wishlist. I'm a member on one forum that let's me input a list of terms. If a post is made with those terms I am notified. Comes in really handy when I am looking to buy something.
vBulletin has a feature like that installed by default. I could turn it on and give it a test ride if a few more people like the idea. I am worried that it might create an elitist group of old members with high post counts who think they are better than others. Comments on this guys?Going off the "like" concept that tim9lives spoke of. Is there a way to have a "like" button that would show on the main page? This way people could see that the item for sale is nice and or the person is a respected member of the forum. Just throwing an idea out there. Not even sure it is possible. The whole like on FB thing is ok but most members on here are not friends on FB. To add to that there are prolly more members here that are not even on FB.
Traffic hasn't gone down. It has actually been increasing since I came in as Admin. Also, it has not gone down much since the big active period of late 2011. People just post less. More lurkers now.They're used to be a lot more than eight, used to be a lot more traffic too. I wonder what the common denominator is?
People can already lock their own threads in the classifieds section. That would disallow commentsI have been around for a while but don't post a lot. I do read quite a number of the posts on the site. But I have slowed down on coming to the site since some of the changes. Seemed, at least to me, that for a while there was an overly controlling mood to the forums.
Question if the classifieds would have comments. Can a selection be built into the create new post page to either allow or disallow comments on the post? Similar to locking the post? Seems this would allow those members who didn't want comments to block them and also allow those who didn't care to get and give comments. Just a thought.
<---------------------------->
Now that I have finished responding to a few recurring ideas, I have a few things to say:
1) I am open to allowing comments back in the classifieds. For now, lets QUIT discussing it in this thread. We know lots of y'all want it back. I am going to work on putting something together that would allow comments, but make it work better than in the past. If you really have something to say, PM me. For now though, NO MORE DISCUSSING COMMENTS IN CLASSIFIEDS IN THIS THREAD>
2) The like system someone mentioned above - I would like opinions.
3) Any new ideas that y'all have would be great. Now that we aren't discussing comments in the classifieds anymore, I urge all of you who have participated in this thread to put on your thinking caps and see if you can come up with any other ways to make the forum better. Simple or complex, let us know.
4) Chat system: Has been tried in the past and failed. I am going to veto this one for now.
5) I think I caught all of the new ideas suggested in the 8 pages, but if I missed one that you posted (as in I didn't comment on it), please quote it again so I can mention it.
6) As I said above - everything being discussed here is also being discussed in the moderator forum. Ultimately, we have to implement any ideas that you guys like. If anything worth mentioning comes up, I will most certainly make sure to inform everyone here. Thanks for the cooperation guys
7) Lastly, I am still receiving PMs from people. If I haven't responded yet, I will soon. I have a quite a few to go through and not too much time on my hands tonight (it's 12:10 AM already). Don't think I forgot about ya!
Thanks again guys!
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