Announcement Trade Forum Rules Update Draft--Please Read

[Smoot]

I mean no disrespect to anyone at all by asking this.. I am just curious and can't figure it out for myself.. that being said...

Why would anyone who runs/owns a website/forum be trying to implement things to decrease traffic/posts?

this is my take on it. stratics is no longer "for profit", so traffic doesnt matter anymore. what matters more now is staffing, and how much time the mods want to put into moderating.

because theres no longer a drive for profits, and no $$ for a professional, paid staff, the direction and incentives change. From a non-profit point of view, less activity is probably worth less time commitment in the current situation.

Now, if they hired a few people and paid them (as past owners have done) it would give incentive to cover those costs, increase traffic rather than decrease it. (any non-profit can do this, schools and until 2015 even the NFL was non-profit and they make loads of money, its just all used for salaries/paychecks/expenses) plus it would improve the overall usefulness of the site in regards to information. stratics has never recovered this aspect of the site, which was originally its main focus. a forum can just be done on reddit, we dont really "need" stratics if its just forums.

 

[Riyana]

What about a separate sub-forum specifically for auctions? Then there wouldn't be issues with them being updated/bumped a lot and 'competing' with normal selling posts and rares discussions. Rules could be more relaxed there for them.

I was discussing with a few people last night along the same topic as Olcher. Our thoughts were that em iems should have their own sub forum. i believe that would alleviate the forums issues if done properly.

thats an interesting idea, but considering EM rares account for about 70 percent of the threads on the rares forum, it would make that "sub-forum" the main forum. and would not solve the "bump" competition that the mods seem to be concerned about (which is why the rules were changed in the first place)

having aucitons in a seperate area would keep the the rares forum as the main place to discuss and sell rares, would keep people coming to it, while also allowing the "rares auction forum" to thrive, because people like auctions. I think if it were split EM rare / other youd lose alot of of people who might not actively search for non-EM rares, but bid on/ or discuss when something catches the eye.

splitting off auctions seems to be more logical, in that it accomplishes the staffs goals, while keeping both as high traffic areas.

Splitting off auctions into a subforum would advantage standard sales over auction sales. Another complaint we get a lot is the sheer number of forums people have to navigate to find what they are looking for, and setting one style of sale as primary and another as secondary by placing one as a subforum as the other seems like it would just create more issues than it would solve. We are trying to avoid systematically advantaging or disadvantaging any particular selling style.

However, that said, let me run an alternative by you. Some months back (yes, these issues have been under discussion that long--before the site sale) I suggested a bulk forum that would work as follows:

• Posters who post lots of items can post whatever they want in the bulk forum and have ONE post in the relevant forum (rares, general trade, non-rares, or one of each depending on what they are selling) with links to all their bulk posts that they may bump according to the current bump rules.
• No bumps allowed in the bulk forum--it would just be there to relieve the main trade forums of spamminess and bulk. This would make the exact distinction between rare and non-rare items less important, since it would all be in the bulk forum and mixing wouldn't matter much.
• This would also give sellers of fewer items more exposure since they wouldn't be bumped down by so many superfluous threads from a small number of posters.

Would this or a variation of it alleviate some of your concerns? You could still have your 5 posts in the rares/trader's hall/non-rares, but you could have however many you wanted in the bulk forum for juggling and organizing. Since no bumps would be allowed there, active auctions would naturally sit near the top, but it wouldn't matter terribly since they wouldn't be bogging down the "main" forums. Thoughts?

I mean no disrespect to anyone at all by asking this.. I am just curious and can't figure it out for myself.. that being said...

Why would anyone who runs/owns a website/forum be trying to implement things to decrease traffic/posts?

this is my take on it. stratics is no longer "for profit", so traffic doesnt matter anymore. what matters more now is staffing, and how much time the mods want to put into moderating.

The shift of focus away from profit does not mean that we are trying to reduce traffic. We aren't, not in the least. We are trying to balance the issues and complaints we've gotten for a long time--both before and after the sale. Ad revenue we get from traffic doesn't go into anyone's pocket--it is reinvested in the site in the form of maintenance/upkeep costs, plugin licenses and other improvements, and soon in the form of event prizes.

 

[Archnight]

soon in the form of event prizes

I like the sound of that

 

[Kolka]

I don't think further dividing the forums accomplishes much. I can still see that last 5 days worth of posts on the first page of the rares forum, even with the 3 auctions going on and all the EM sales threads, so its not as if anything is getting lost really. As an end user though, having to wade through a cascade of sub forums and sub-sub forums is kind of a negative.

 

[Scribbles]

It is sunday at 1:50am my time... these post have no replies so they have traveled down with out coming back up... they are still on the first page about a 2 thirds of the way down and they were posted on wednesday. they have lasted 4 days on the first page of the forum with out any bumps...

I really dont see any issues here, a general rule of 24 hours for common courtesy would be just fine. anything past that is just nit picking and almost militant.

 

[Alexander of ATL.]

Lookie... I see my name!!!!

And yes, I totally agree. It's really kind of dumb....

 

[Smoot]

With all due respect, these rules will have the overwhelming success of the stratics classifieds section and the Ravenant website, and heres why.

Stratics rares forum is used for buying/selling, discussion, and Pricechecks.

Under the new rules, the 2 week timeframe/5active limit, its better to delete your single item threads so they wont count towards your 5 active posts.
Now, yes you could say "just dont go over 5 in 2 weeks" but under the harsh system of points towards a ban, why risk the ban at all?

And yes, a new rule could just be made that says its a point towards a ban to empty out a post and. However this also isnt the best solution for how stratics is supposed to work (useful for info as well as buying/selling) (and could easily be circumvented anyway, impossible to enforce)

For the vast majority of List selling (because of the nature of how congested they can get) do not record how much the item sold for, contain pictures of sold item, or come up in search often (because the item is usually removed, or added so another post (like i do) with name and price sold for reference.

Yes, auctions being spammed to the top by bids is annoying. we all deal with it and during those times increase visibility to compete with that. but its those auction posters right to use the rares forum to optimize sales just like anyone else.
However the site is shooting themselves in the foot by making single item, non-sold items a detriment to a user when before they were a benefit both to the user (for people being able to find easier with the search feature) and for the integrity and usefulness of the site (for pricechecks after the item is in fact sold - which may take months or years)

Yes, you could say this is looking too far into some antique gaming website that no one really cares about anyway, But hey its a hobby. I like to collect, buy and sell rares, and would like to see the forums do well.

Under these new rules, your still going to have spam. your still going to have 4 people able to take up the first page. plus your NOT going to have the reference information / posts that you had before.

I dont understand why the staff didnt include some of the most experienced buyers / sellers / in the discussions for what would actually be "good" rules. what a mess.

that, plus the situation of the most experience stratics users and uo players expressly being excluded from being able to be on stratics staff puts the site in the condition that its in. Not ideal by any means, but currently used because its the sole option.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

I ain't really got much of a dog in this fight.. I usually only bid/buy here and there, have a discussion thread here and there and a sale thread every once in a great while.. but.. my .02 on things since I have been watching kinda close here lately.

No disrespect to those who have the "Giant, Monster, Mega sales threads", I mean they are just trying to turn their inventory and make a buck or two like the rest of us.... but if it were me I would cap them to one of those at a time on each forum. If the intent is for the rules is to be balance the issues and complaints by the smaller sellers then doing this would be the first step I would take if this was my sandbox (which it aint ) to level things out. Over the last week the forum does seem to be dominated by those type threads and the smaller one item threads, discussion threads etc drop quickly or get lost in the feeding frenzy of the large threads. So smaller sellers try to bump their threads to keep them visible, but that can't really be done with bump rules..

Glad I ain't the one at the helm making the decisions though *shrugs*

 

[Olcher]

Sellers and auctioneers may not 'bump' a thread more than 1 time every 24 hours.

I'd like to get ahead of this and get exact clarification before I get in trouble for it.

My trend is I bump once a day in the evening when I'm home from work and I'm finished with dinner/RL stuff. Sometimes is 8pm to 11pm. Maybe weekends it's earlier. I don't have a set bump schedule nor do I set any type of alarm or reminder to visit stratics and bump threads.

For example,
Day 1 I bump at 11pm
Day 2 I bump at 9pm
Day 3 I bump at 11:30pm
Day 4 I bump at 11pm
Day 5 I bump at 10pm

Am I violating the rules or is this an acceptable practice?

 

[Giggles]

I am adding a temporary sticky to this thread until we have the rules updated on the official rule pages.

 

[Smoot]

well we had little response to this discussion / questions.


i still think that adding an entire new item sure seems like "meaningful content" but since it doesnt, and counts as your one "bump" to announce a new item i guess ill just continue to make a seperate post for each new item. which is exactly the opposite of what these rules were trying to accomplish (its more forum bloat rather than less)

i feel this entire rule-change is basically a joke, not well thought out, and have flaws apparent to any experienced seller.


i had assumed they had just been all thrown out until this was re-posted today.

to those of you who feel im too concerned with some rules on some un-known video game forum, i apologize for taking the time to care.