Recent eBay Ads in the Marketplace - An Explanation

[blackburn mark]

adverts are now making it into the forum threads ?
how much can you squeeze before you squeeze the sense out of it ?

[bobc]

adverts are now making it into the forum threads ?
how much can you squeeze before you squeeze the sense out of it ?

Did anyone else get spam PM's from a guy offering tax avoidance schemes? That I could do without.

[blackburn mark]

This was recently listed on eBay:



Dont forget to leave feedback in the Trading Experience & Feedback forum letting us know how you get on.

is there not a "classified adds" that this kind of thing can go into ?
does it really have to show up in latest activity ?
how much are you paying to clog up the latest activity list or is it a free for all ?
is it just me or is anybody else starting to feel the adds on this site are getting tad intrusive?

(iv got two chocolate single flute slot drills and an air guitar for sale if anyone is interested)

[Lee Roberts]

Hi guys,

I have moved your post’s to this new thread so I can keep track of your questions/feedback and continue the discussion in one place. I always like to be as transparent as I feel is necessary and I hope to clear up some of your concerns and give you all a better idea of what I have done recently in regards to the eBay ads that have been showing up on the forum.

adverts are now making it into the forum threads ?
how much can you squeeze before you squeeze the sense out of it ?

Yes and no, the eBay ads are classed as new threads yes however they not private advertising arrangements in that sense between the site and a select a few sellers on eBay.

My intention here hasn’t been to “squeeze” what I can from the system; I actually hoped to integrate a cool feature that people would like and find useful when using the market place section of the forum, as this section is a recent addition to our offerings.

Did anyone else get spam PM's from a guy offering tax avoidance schemes? That I could do without.

I certainly didn’t and this concerns me greatly, at this point in time I have not investigated this but I will be very shortly. This is also the first time anyone has raised such a concern with me on this.

I would appreciate it if you could share any information with me regarding this, particularly the name of the User in question. I can look into this myself by going into your Private Messages, however if you could share the User with me it would help me greatly as I would rather not invade your privacy in that way unless I really have to.

We don’t tolerate any kind of spam and we have taken allot of time on this subject to eliminate it as best we can, sorry for any inconvenience the said user may have caused anyone and you have my word it will be dealt with.

is there not a "classified adds" that this kind of thing can go into?

There is Mark and if you look again you will see these ads are located in the MARKETPLACE/Classified Ads, Buy, Sell & Swap/Items On eBay UK section of the forum.

does it really have to show up in latest activity ?

I guess they don’t need to show up in the recent activity page no, however not having them show up in my opinion would defeat the point of having them in the first place. That doesn’t mean to say I am ignorant towards disrupting your user experience, the problem is I can’t please everybody all of the time.

This is the last post I need to reply to so I will give you the inside on what I have setup so you can understand how it’s working better.

Basically I thought it would be a good idea to have Newly Listed items on eBay automatically posted into the forum, I think I have done this the best way I can (ish).

Let me explain...
Obviously we don’t want any old listing/item submitted so I have setup what is known as “Rss Feeds” that are custom search’s of eBay for things like “Stepper Motors” or “Linear Rail”. For the search criteria I have specified listings/items located specifically in the UK, for both “Auction Style” and “Buy It Now” types of listing.

Originally I had hoped that I could make these submissions only come onto the forum every 72 hours with the obvious concern that I needed to also protect the user experience, the problem I ran into was the forum system only allows me to run/check each feed from every 10 minutes up to every 12 hours. So I’ve gone with every 12 hours and placed a spacing of an hour between each feed as that was the best I could do at this moment in time.

Coming back to the question of if or not these submissions need to be in the recent activity list, this is something I thought about beforehand but like I said above in my opinion the number of users who don’t partially care to see those threads is likely to be very small compared to the amount of users who would have an interest in seeing them.

Why?
Well because I’ve recently been in contact with around 3500 users who haven’t made any posts on the forum yet, I asked them briefly if they had any problems using the site and if or not there was anything I could for them to help them along with becoming more active and fixing any problems they may have run into when trying to use the site/forum.

The feedback I got back from those that did get back to me was that actually their accounts are not redundant in this way and at this stage they are collecting the gear required to build their machines and gathering as much information as they can, so browsing, reading and following along with the daily actives that go on. This didn’t include the 200+ guests we have reading the site every day!

Another thing I was hoping would happen is that every now and again a really sweet deal would pop up on a “Buy It Now” or that an auction style listing would come to light for some gear that one of our users had been waiting to see for a long time. Just a hope I guess.

Going Forward...

If I’ve got this wrong and the overall consensus is that actually a higher percentage of you would rather not see the eBay ads in the Recent Activity page and say to me “hey lee I think you got this wrong this time, any chance you could sort this out.” then I will happily hold my hands up and make the change a reality, I’m only trying to look after everybody all of the time.

So now it is all laid out on the table, fire away with your feedback or comments and I will do the best I can to look after you.

Have a Great Weekend!

.Me

[Lee Roberts]

Sorry just another quick note: I had to lock this thread while I made my reply; you know how people like to get carried away before I can explain things. Away it’s now unlocked again.

A Note for Mark: Notice the Amazon Ads are no longer present

Thanks.

[JAZZCNC]

Personaly I don't like the Ebay Ads or the recruitment wallers showing in recent activity.!! To me the point of the site is mostly for CNC/Machinist discussion not CNC sales ETC and the activity should relate to builds or information related to building.
If I want to buy stuff I know where to find the classified add's section or Ebay, same goes for if I need a Job, I don't want it poping up in front of me all the time and more annoying is it's usually the same stuff.!! . . Bob's and crappy TB based boards.!!

I don't mind the RFQ in recent activity because that's helping someone in need but the rest I can find on my own if needed.!!

[JAZZCNC]

Sorry just another quick note: I had to lock this thread while I made my reply; you know how people like to get carried away before I can explain things. Away it’s now unlocked again.

He he . . . I'm getting used to you know Lee because when I saw the thread locked it did put my heckles up (you know how much I hate sensorship) so nearly started a protest thread but held fire hoping it wasjust being moved or something similiar to what you've done. . . Good Man.

[blackburn mark]

A Note for Mark: Notice the Amazon Ads are no longer present

:) splendid xxx

as for the adds showing in the activity box.... my take is, the activity box is my line into what's been going on and any "extra" activity bumps the interesting stuff... "help., my hamster's wrapped around my spindle" etc :)

i don't often trawl the rest of site any more, its straight to the activity box to see if i can make any use of myself.
im assuming most of the guys who have been around for a while do the same?
(as a newcomer the activity box meant nowt... i was busy reading up on build logs)

another thing, building a cnc makes you an excellent ebay bargain hunter... iv yet to see an advert that couldn't undercut one way or another
i know this may not be the case for everyone and some people are more willing to throw money at a problem than time

im surprised how many people join and don't post !! to busy reading and hatching the master plan i guess :)

[JAZZCNC]

im surprised how many people join and don't post !! to busy reading and hatching the master plan i guess :)

I'm not.!! . . I've had loads contact me that have only 1 or 2 posts and I've never even seen before. (I always look who's reading threads I do.!!)
Unfortunatly often they are contacting me because there brains are mushed from all the conflicting advise and more unfortunate is they have often bought stuff thats not really suitable or ideal.!! . . Usually low volt PSU's and Massive motor sizes .

[Swarfing]

Lee i personally like it as i am always looking. At the end of the day jonathan came back with a better deal so at least the suppliers if they see the post will get a better idea of what people will pay?. It also helps the noobs get to the stuff that is relevent.