fyi- Classified Ads migration in progress

[Jerevan]

Thanks, David!

Methinks it is a smidge too little in the way of coffee this morning...

 

[Sean]

That page will also soon have a listing of the most recent ads as well..

 

[MikeSeb]

Looks good; but I don't seem to have the ability now to edit the ad, or to exclude comments, etc. Was this lost somehow in the migration? I'd planned, as items sold, to indicate that within the text of the original ad, to keep things neat. (my ad is for Contax gear for sale, placed within the last few days.)

Thanks fellas.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I think you should be able to exclude comments and close the thread once Sean sets that up.

We decided against allowing edits to the original post beyond the usual edit window, because that could defeat the purpose of the archiving system, which will retain ads after thirty days for research purposes and in case of disputes.

So if you want to update and indicate which items have sold or which items are still available, you could mention that as a comment to the thread or occasionally post a new list within the thread, or if it becomes a real mess, just close the thread and relist.

 

[Sean]

ok, we're going to turn on full edit because there are cases when someone might list 5 items and would like to update their original post with status per item. I would encourage posters not to delete the content in their ads so that we can archive the ads for historical purposes (I'll put a notice regarding that on the new classifieds post area). We will be running an archive on ads older than 30 days to a "Classifieds Archive" forum.

 

[Mike1234]

I'll say again... you guys ROCK!!

 

[Ektagraphic]

I personally liked the classified ads before. They were simple. Easy to navigate and they worked. Now it's not very convenient.

 

[Sean]

I personally liked the classified ads before. They were simple. Easy to navigate and they worked. Now it's not very convenient.

Keep in mind it is currently a work in progress, some of the usability of the old system will be ported over. If there is anything in particular you would like speak now and I can spec it up for the coder. Another reason for migrating them into forums is we will soon be on a core system update path to vbulletin 4.0 and the old classifieds are no longer supported and would not work with the core system update..

 

[fotch]

Yea, kind of clunky, not a real ad system. How does a person find all their ads? Searching all the postings? Maybe its just me and I need to get use to it. Then again...

One other note. Photos that are listed either open very slowly, or never load at all.

 

[Sean]

I can ad a link for listing 'my ads'. I can make it so attached images are automatically embedded in the page rather than clicking required.. Thanks for the feedback

 

[Rick A]

Yes, please, definitly need a "my ads" connection. Also, we need to be able to edit our ads. Will our ads expire, and migrate to the archives automatically?

Rick

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

We've been going back and forth about unlimited editing, because it would conflict with the goals of archiving. We haven't archived ads in the past, so maybe we could just not archive or accept that the archive will be compromised for the convenience of editing. The current plan has been to move ads to an uneditable archive forum automatically after 30 days.

The purposes of the archive would be to keep a record of ads in case of disputes, and to keep the information in the ads for research purposes, in case people want to find out more about equipment that's been advertised, since ads often have good pictures and instructions and such, or to figure out what the going price is for equipment that has been sold. We haven't had any unresolved disputes about equipment not living up to the description advertised, so maybe we can sacrifice this by allowing editing, but if we ever did have such a dispute, the archive wouldn't necessarily be of value in resolving disputes, if it were possible for the seller to edit the description between the time of sale and the time the thread is archived. If sellers with lists of items were to delete the items from the ad as they are sold, they would not only be lost in case of a dispute, but they also wouldn't be available for research purposes.

eBay allows editing by archiving the edits and making the changes accessible to bidders, but I don't think that would be easy to implement here.

One way around this might be to put the onus on the buyer to save a screenshot of the ad in case of a dispute, though I know that not everyone knows how to do that. Maybe it would be possible to add a "save to desktop" button for buyers so they could easily save a copy of the ad, and we could just accept that the archive would not serve that purpose, and that the archive wouldn't be a perfect record of items sold for research purposes, but there would still be a lot of good information there.

 

[Mike1234]

You guys are putting a lot of thought and effort into this and we all appreciate it greatly. David, a person can save a screenshot of an ad but those are easily edited in PS. Saving the web page is also a good idea but the text and images are easily edited and re-saved. I don't know enough about forum SW to offer a solution but Ive been told by admins on other sites that they archive every edit on every post. How they do that I don't know.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Those are good points, Mike. I know we have a RAID system running to back up the database, but maybe Sean could tell us if we could reconstruct the edit history of a post with the data we have, and how easy it would be, and how long that edit history is available. I anticipate that we wouldn't need to do this even once a year, if that often since it hasn't been an issue even once up to this point, so if it's the sort of thing that only Sean would have access to, that might be less of a burden on our overall resources than designing a public archive.

 

[bdial]

Does putting a reply in your ad, such as "sold" bump it? How about locking it?

I had a few ads which were in Hidden status in the old system, that got resurected. I admit, I should have deleted them, but I had hid them pending conclusion of the pending purchases, and then forgot to ditch them.

It would be nice for a seller to be able to delete an ad, if it's no longer relevant, or whatever.
I got around the "my ads" thing by doing an advanced search in the classifieds thread for my username.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

If you post a reply, it bumps the ad to the top of the list as with any other post, but in the Classifieds forum, you should now have the option of locking your ad, either because the item has sold or if you don't want comments on your ad. After 30 days, it moves automatically to the Classifieds Archive forum, but maybe Sean can set it up so that you can archive the ad manually when the item sells.

 

[bdial]

So, maybe for old ads it's best to just lock them? Once the transition is settled, it probably isn't an issue. I just didn't want to bump my old ads that got (apparently) un-hidden back to current readability.
Though maybe I worry too much.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

You could lock them, if you like, or just wait and they'll go away on their own.

 

[fotch]

I can ad a link for listing 'my ads'. I can make it so attached images are automatically embedded in the page rather than clicking required.. Thanks for the feedback

Yes, that sounds like a good modification. I found that if I put a picture of the item at my web site, then using the "Insert Link" that the pictures load instantly, however, if I remove those photos at some point (after the item sells) this would mean the archiving of the ad will be without photo, right?

Thanks for all your efforts.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I found that if I put a picture of the item at my web site, then using the "Insert Link" that the pictures load instantly, however, if I remove those photos at some point (after the item sells) this would mean the archiving of the ad will be without photo, right?

Yes.

 

[Mike1234]

For dispute resolution and comparison purposes archiving the images with the ads is important.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

That is true, but to do that, we'd need to require that images be uploaded to the site. It is possible to disallow embedded images and require users to upload images as attachments, but would likely involve restricting the number of images per ad to avoid bandwidth problems, and that could cause problems with ads that include a lot of items, or the kinds of things where you want to be able to show all sides. I suppose that people could still link to images on external websites for additional views or multiple items as they do currently, but then APUG can't archive that.

 

[eddie gunks]

thanks guys. i like the newest version the best. i think having it in a forum style makes it work much better than the last system.

i had not been listing stuff FS here due to the last system being not so user friendly. this should help.

thanks

eddie

 

[Mike1234]

Hi Eddie. Are you eddie on LFP.I?

 

[fotch]

The photos, if large, load slow, and will take up more and more server space as you archive them. If you could restrict them to maybe 50k, maybe that would help.

For my ads, I will do both, load a small picture and link to a larger one. However, I don't know how you could require that.

I like the idea of archive of the ads.