Moderation????

let's try not to turn this into a personal back and forth...

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It seems to me the spirit of this FREE service is to pass along what you are going to sell to like-minded people who you share ideas with on several other fronts and not just to sell your gear.
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Brian. I appreciate the sentiment, and it is the original mission statement of the Marketplace, and still my underlying goal in providing the Marketplace. Unfortunately, it is not reflective of reality. The marketplace isn't just 20 or 30 folks who are active on the boards and passing gear along anymore. It is hundreds of folks... some like you describe, others farming out large amounts of gear on a regular basis, others in it for completely commercial purposes, etc, etc.

As a mission statement, it is a good one. As a policy driver, the marketplace seems to have grown well beyond that niche.
 
BrianMurphy said:
I find your need to blow your own horn annoying, your quotes are your quotes not mine and your lecture is rhetoric and unnecessary. You expressed your idea, I expressed my opinion. Seems you can't take criticism and again I don't really care about what you spent the last half of your life doing since it is not relevant in this discussion. This was a comment from Paul, questioning the amount of moderation on the site, then it worked its way to what would appear to be the core ....the Marketplace.
My last comment .
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Hey I'm only trying to help DVX and wanted to back it up and validate the fact that my idea is actually proven, not just a matter of opinion. I have experience in this area, so I am offering it. Opinions are great to have don't get me wrong, but too many is also bad and takes us away from actual solutions.

Sorry if I offended you, I am quite passionate about proper good working solutions and don't forget I have absolutely nothing to gain personally from these changes.

Cheers,
 
My suggestions...

Categories:

FS - Camera Kits (must include a camera body, any number of *included* accessories)
FS - Accessories (listings that don't include a camera body)
FS - Ebay (refers people to the ebay)
Wanted (whether to buy or rent, a separate category for items wanted)

Bumping:
As someone who both buys and sells here, I'll admit the current method can be frustrating at times. As a seller you hate having your listing buried. But let's keep in mind you can bump if you're willing to lower the asking price. So, for buyers, it works out well - motivated sellers will reduce their price until they start getting responses. If we allow bumping on a high frequency many sellers will keep bumping unrealistic prices adding to the clutter.

So, I'd say continue to allow price drop bumps anytime, and allow other bumps as follows:
FS - Camera Kits - 14 day bump
FS - Accessories - 14 day bump
FS - Ebay (Auction Listings) - Once, generally advisable to use within the 24 hours the auction is ending.
FS - Ebay (Buy It Now) - 14 Day Bump
Wanted - 14 Day Bump

Personal Gear, Available for Rent - Once a Month Bump.

An infrequent bump schedule will maintain the incentive for sellers to lower prices. Also, by creating the two new categories, the total number of listings in each category will be lower, so less bumping will be needed.
 
What would you guys suggest to deal with the people that just come to dvxuser.com to sell?

For far too many of these new users, there is no sense of community, a complete failure to even look at the guidelines for posting, and for many, no access to PM, or e mail.

We tout dvxuser.com as a collaborative, supportive community, but those that just sell and buy, but don't participate substantively here usually present the biggest problems for me, at least.

I might add that I try to moderate to provide the best experience for buyers and sellers. The limit on photos, for example, is designed to keep scrolling to the latest post or back to the listing post to a minimum. Too many photos really slows down the process, and get a fair number of PMs about too many photos.

Posting the new price in the latest post again is designed to get selling info to the buyer as quickly as possible.
 
Two of the professional audio forums I'm on require at least 50+ posts to sell, and one of them requires a 7 day waiting period for bumping. There aren't categories for different types of equipment, but one of the forums has a thread 'just' for ebay posts, like a thread for 'auctions'; that way direct sales are clearly visible, and people can look into the auction thread for bidding. There's also a 'feedback' application or something where you can rate your experience in the one; the other has a more ad hoc thread where you just post your experience with the other user

I'm newer here so obv this doesn't carry a whole lot of weight. Just a thought
 
One of the things discussed recently that we are likely going to add is a 30 day membership period before you can create threads in the Marketplace (before you can sell) buyers would still be able to browse and respond in threads as soon as they register.
 
Jason Ramsey said:
One of the things discussed recently that we are likely going to add is a 30 day membership period before you can create threads in the Marketplace (before you can sell) buyers would still be able to browse and respond in threads as soon as they register.
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For me personally, I won't deal with anyone in the Marketplace who is not an active user here. First thing I check is a post count.
 
Jason Ramsey said:
One of the things discussed recently that we are likely going to add is a 30 day membership period before you can create threads in the Marketplace (before you can sell) buyers would still be able to browse and respond in threads as soon as they register.
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David Saraceno said:
What would you guys suggest to deal with the people that just come to dvxuser.com to sell?

For far too many of these new users, there is no sense of community, a complete failure to even look at the guidelines for posting, and for many, no access to PM, or e mail.

We tout dvxuser.com as a collaborative, supportive community, but those that just sell and buy, but don't participate substantively here usually present the biggest problems for me, at least.

I might add that I try to moderate to provide the best experience for buyers and sellers. The limit on photos, for example, is designed to keep scrolling to the latest post or back to the listing post to a minimum. Too many photos really slows down the process, and get a fair number of PMs about too many photos.

Posting the new price in the latest post again is designed to get selling info to the buyer as quickly as possible.
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Very simple, most forum sites have a subscription policy in order to even access the marketplace. This is how you can regulate access to the area by either "X" many required of quality posts, or "X" number of days probation.

The "number of days" rule is easier to manage than having to count peoples posts, plus all people do is start posting garbage just to get their post count up.

Trust me, it works and keeps out the riffraff.


**Also just a note, I don't actually condone any section for soliciting EBAY posts at all. Sorry if that was not clear. EBAY linking should be banned, we all know where EBAY is located so it is easy to go there yourself like many of us already do. I don't need a post on DVX to say "hey guys I couldn't sell it here on DVX so now its on ebay". EBAY links just waste server space and DVXUSER bandwidth un-necessarily. EBAY does not pay DVX to sponsor its services, so I say remove it.
 
In the end it makes me pretty excited that we can discuss the idea of improving DVX. Again I'm sorry if I sound very forward about my ideas, and completely aside from my personal recommendations my honest and best advise it to always start with small changes and leave room to grow.

Too often when the notion of a "project" comes up everyone feels the need to contribute "great ideas" and thinks theirs is the best (including me). What this does is create "scope creep" which usually results in a bigger project of "changes" than are actually necessary. This is a recipe for disaster.

Start small and leave room for phase 2, 3, 4, etc.. and this way it will also leave you with some room to adapt to things which we may not have been thought through completely. Almost everything around us we see as "done right" was a matter of evolution and didn't happen overnight.
 
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+1 for allowing bumping after a certain period of time (7-10 days would be fine)

I also think having a few basic categories for the marketplace would be great.
 
I wasn't around when the eBay links were approved. I have to say that I don't particularly care for those posts, or the ones that link to CraigsList.

I am all for a limitation of 30 posts out of the Marketplace, and 30 days of membership to get into the Marketplace.

That will allow buyers some insight into credibility.
 
Red user moderation borders on censorship.

Reasonable moderation based on limited, known guidelines has been a strongpoint of this site for me. Overactive moderators are one of the largest burdens on forums though.
 
Let me bring this back, and clarify my original post. It is not just the marketplace that suffers from un-moderate moderation. It is the whole site. In the early days this forum was about learning and having fun. The fun is long gone and it may never return.

It is not a great secret that many, if not most, of the original contributors gave up on DVX and moved on. The reasons are many but I can tell you from some of the guys I still keep in contact it was because the forum lacked the light-hearted fun it once had and most blame it on two things. One, to many, and very heavy handed moderation.

It saddens me that this has happened and though most of the old pros may never return this forum can be saved and bettered if all got back to having fun and sharing experiences instead of guarding the posts like a CIA spy.
 
Paul Hudson said:
Let me bring this back, and clarify my original post. It is not just the marketplace that suffers from un-moderate moderation. It is the whole site. In the early days this forum was about learning and having fun. The fun is long gone and it may never return.

It is not a great secret that many, if not most, of the original contributors gave up on DVX and moved on. The reasons are many but I can tell you from some of the guys I still keep in contact it was because the forum lacked the light-hearted fun it once had and most blame it on two things. One, to many, and very heavy handed moderation.

It saddens me that this has happened and though most of the old pros may never return this forum can be saved and bettered if all got back to having fun and sharing experiences instead of guarding the posts like a CIA spy.
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I've been a member of DVX for 8 year not once experienced a moderator issue, sorry for being in the dark but can I ask for an example of what happened in your case, or what you saw happen? Maybe it was just one bad apple? That could happen surely.

Again I never noticed any crazy moderation on any posts here on DVXuser, but I have complained about a few users who were downright insulting towards other members.
 
Look, we have -- at most -- about six or seven active moderators. That's about it. Lots of folks hold the title, but only a few actually go in and do whatever moderation needs to be done.

And that moderation that we do, is in context with our guiding principles, which is: no divisive fighting over politics, religion, no namecalling, that kind of stuff.

Sure, lots of folks have moved on. The site is, after all, well over nine years old and halfway to its 10th birthday. It's been around a long, long time -- and people change. The membership is far larger than it was, which has brought its own share of difficulties. And, like it or not, the way people interact with the internet has changed, very much so, just in the years that I've been on this site. The whole concept of "respect" is out the window, people are far more argumentative, in-your-face, challenging, and hostile at the drop of a hat. And that isn't because of "over-moderation" on the part of the five or six guys who try to keep the ship afloat, it's because people -- and the internet -- have changed. Attention spans are out the window. Reduser ran Claudio Miranda off the boards within a few posts. It's a different landscape.

So -- do you think six active, policing mods is too many for a board with a membership of 100,000 and which has usually 2,500 to 3,500 people on line at any time? And if you think that six active mods are too many -- who do you suggest we fire?
 
Since I've been here, my feeling is that the mods strike a good balance. I've seen warnings in very heated debates to let people know where the lines are.(and only later are posts deleted if the lines are crossed) On other boards (I won't mention here) there is:A. no moderation AT ALL and people go back and forth saying horrible things about one another B. So much moderation that real opinions are never heard. To the Admin and the mods- I for one thank you for keeping this a professional yet passionate place.
As far as the marketplace is concerned, I like a lot of the ideas already mentioned 1. A waiting period for new members to post threads there. 2. Categories of some sort 3. Bumps after a reasonable point. 4. Maybe getting rid of outside selling altogether...ebay, etc.
 
I've often said that this is the best moderated site I've been on. The mods are rarely intrusive in the main boards, the few times I've been moderated I've been given a reason by PM, a chance to make good and even if I haven't liked it, I agreed with the decisions. They give us a lot of latitude but intervene just as things are about to get out of hand. For so few mods they dedicate a lot of time to trawling through the threads. I only go through maybe 10% of the threads myself and that's a minimum two hour daily commitment. There's only been a couple of times I've ever seen moderation I thought was premature but that's okay, generally they are on the money. On balance the moderators seem to me to apply the rules with a pretty common sense attitude. They nudge the tone in the direction of civility rather than apply a draconian enforcement.

One thing I would suggest is putting the rules somewhere more prominent, like on it's own option on the main menu next to Marketplace Feedback. I've read them somewhere once but can't find them now. It would make them easier to reference when you know your pushing the boundaries.

I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate the mods for their recent wins over spam. I haven't seen any in over a week and I usually log on about the time the most persistent spambots turn up. I've been reporting them and it is dealt with very quickly but lately there's been nothing to report. Thanks guys, doing a great job on that.

As far as the marketplace goes, I'm fine with it as it is. If someone isn't bumping with a new price why would someone be interested to buy it now if they weren't yesterday? Allowing a weekly bump would be okay but for those of us who use the 'New Posts' method of combing for threads, daily bumps would form a glut that impact on finding useful discussion threads. The FOR SALE in the title helps but when it's half of each page of search results...

My view is that the marketplace isn't the point of the site, it's simply a place to collect that discussion to prevent it spilling over into the business end of the site. Like off-topic discussions. I keep across it, occasionally buy something but it's not my main place to trade. A lot of the people using the marketplace don't otherwise contribute to the site. What's the point of that. Why would I buy off someone with a thread count of 3? If it's a good deal it's a scam. If it's not I'll go to ebay where there is some measure of protection. If an active member makes a bad trade there are social repercussions, I can operate on trust. Speaking of ebay, that's where I trade as I'm sure most do. If you're posting a link to ebay without offering some kind of discount to members, why post a link here? If I'm looking for it, I'll find it.

Just my thoughts on the matter.
 
Barry_Green said:
Look, we have -- at most -- about six or seven active moderators. That's about it. Lots of folks hold the title, but only a few actually go in and do whatever moderation needs to be done.

And that moderation that we do, is in context with our guiding principles, which is: no divisive fighting over politics, religion, no namecalling, that kind of stuff.

Sure, lots of folks have moved on. The site is, after all, well over nine years old and halfway to its 10th birthday. It's been around a long, long time -- and people change. The membership is far larger than it was, which has brought its own share of difficulties. And, like it or not, the way people interact with the internet has changed, very much so, just in the years that I've been on this site. The whole concept of "respect" is out the window, people are far more argumentative, in-your-face, challenging, and hostile at the drop of a hat. And that isn't because of "over-moderation" on the part of the five or six guys who try to keep the ship afloat, it's because people -- and the internet -- have changed. Attention spans are out the window. Reduser ran Claudio Miranda off the boards within a few posts. It's a different landscape.

So -- do you think six active, policing mods is too many for a board with a membership of 100,000 and which has usually 2,500 to 3,500 people on line at any time? And if you think that six active mods are too many -- who do you suggest we fire?
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My statement is pointed at no one in particular. It was a simple observation. I have never been moderated myself but that maybe because I believe in civil debate. Perhaps I am old school but I was taught to try and always be understanding of any dispute, if that be face to face, phone or now the internet.

Perhaps I touched a sensitive nerve here, if so I sincerely apologize. However, my observations have also taught me that sensitive nerves are something that should be addressed before they become a real problem.

I have no personal problem with any moderator. Never have and by all means I don't suggest anyone be fired.

If this thread results in the changes people have suggested to "The Marketplace", great, if not it means nothing to me personally. It is your forum. Do as you see fit. On DVX, as well as life, we can learn a lot by listening to others.
 
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