Thread: Classified's

Why are the classified's on here not taken off or up-dated.

Every time i look in there for something i find what i want, for example 5 minutes ago i'm searching for some wheels, find some real nice s-line alloys, read the ad then see it was posted in january....like they will still be for sale

Someone sort it.............PLEASE

The classifieds on this site are the ****tiest i ever came across ! Not only they dont update but they are not clear at all and you cannot see the new posts + they are difficult to look trough if you after something ! I had many vw/audi items for sale on different forums and i never got a hit from here...

FactionOne (Admin) asked me to mention the Classifieds will be sorted before the end of the week, he will post more details in due course.

Funny someone mentions this as I was also thinking the same, lol

Originally Posted by adamss24

The classifieds on this site are the ****tiest i ever came across !

no swearing please

Originally Posted by adamss24

I had many vw/audi items for sale on different forums and i never got a hit from here...

sorry about that,we will have to give you your advertising fee back then

I don't know what Chris is complaining about, he usually just pimps it whatever section it applies to...

That would be great if it was sorted, and more clear would be good also.

Get rid of the old ads and start again, i need help with wheel searching and as.net is not helping!!

I am going to be removing adverts eight weeks old/er as the revamp is going to take time.
And like Captain Oates said "I may be some time"

The problem is the silly classifieds plugin thats used. A simple sub forum would work so much better.

For example if your having a garage clearout, you dont want to have to list each individual item, with individual prices. You want to make one post and list everything in it.

The current setup doesnt allow that though.

Many years ago Migweb tried changing from their existing subforum setup to a similar classifieds thing thats on here. Sales and postings dropped thru the floor, it was a complete disaster and they eventually (after MONTHS) admitted defeat and put it back to the way it was.

The exact same applies here.

Originally Posted by Byzan A4

I don't know what Chris is complaining about, he usually just pimps it whatever section it applies to...

Sorry Mark, i'm still working me way trough the forum...I'm more of a grease monkey than computer wizz, me !

Any news as to when we are going to get a Classified section that works?

We have one that works Dave,just click the highlighted button.
Have you got more stuff to sell ?

The problem is the silly plugin thats used.

With most forums, you just make a normal post, in a particular section and then people can reply, ask questions, etc, its all just far more user friendly.

examples:

http://www.rs246.com/index.php?name=...=viewforum&f=8
http://audisrs.com/forum3.php
http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showforum=5
http://www.lro.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=7
http://www.migweb.co.uk/forums/items-sale/

These forums all have hugely active for-sale sections, and they are so much easier to use. Because its the same layout as the rest of the forum its much easier to quickly scan thru, and much easier to post one single post with a large number of items.

If you can think what would happen if you wanted to post a "garage clearout" type post on the current system... It simply doesnt work, as posting a "classified" is really only designed to list one item, not a group of items.

They are good options Kev but the powers that be wish to continue with the current system,sorry

You mean the power that be has already wasted the money on the classefieds plugin, and instead of admitting its junk and reverting to a normal system, they're going to bury their head in the sand instead...

Kev,you do know people are stuck under buildings in Haiti dying whilst your arguing the toss on an advert section ?

Nice diversion.

Still doesnt actually answer the question though does it?

You could equally say that your sat on here "moderating" (or even browsing in general tbh) while the same people are dying in Haiti/Palestine/wherever?

But I am also fundraising for the Haiti disaster on another forum so alls good Kev

Sorry Voorhees but people every day of every year are dieing all over the world in terrible conditions or are getting tortured because of there religious/political believes get over it.

So without knowing me, my beliefs, my financial situation, or quite frankly anything else about me, you've made quite a big assumption about me sitting on a forum "arguing" instead of donating money to a charity?

Get a grip mate, this is a thread about a feature on the forum that is currently quite broken, and is now going off at a rediculous tangent beacuse of you.

It seems to me that the admin of this forum (who it would seem has absolutely no interest in the Audi marque or this community) decides what he personally wants without care for anything the site users or even the moderators would like to see happen. If thats the case the real question is what is he getting out of it? If he has no interest in the marque or the community, why is the board still here? Is it just a nice cash cow?

Originally Posted by devonmikeyboy

Sorry Voorhees but people every day of every year are dieing all over the world in terrible conditions or are getting tortured because of there religious/political believes get over it.

no need to be sorry,he was arguing the toss about something which has already been answered yet coming back for more ??

Originally Posted by aragorn

So without knowing me, my beliefs, my financial situation, or quite frankly anything else about me, you've made quite a big assumption about me sitting on a forum "arguing" instead of donating money to a charity?

That's almost in the same league as "I have a dream...", "We choose to do these things..." or "Never have so many..." - but just as much as it succeeds on emotion, it fails on conviction. Largely because for all this 'hands up in horror' talk of assumption, you're only one sentence away from joining-in....

Get a grip mate, this is a thread about a feature on the forum that is currently quite broken, and is now going off at a rediculous tangent beacuse of you.

Or, "Get a grip mate, this thread WAS about a feature of the site which had some reliability issues, but between 'whinge-bumps' has seen some repairs, rendering the thread little more than your scratching post."

It seems to me that the admin of this forum (who it would seem has absolutely no interest in the Audi marque or this community) decides what he personally wants without care for anything the site users or even the moderators would like to see happen. If thats the case the real question is what is he getting out of it? If he has no interest in the marque or the community, why is the board still here? Is it just a nice cash cow?

WOAHOHOAH! And there it is! (Look, you've made TWO assumptions (generally "seems" is an operator of assumption) before the end of your brackets...

So, even though we have been through this before (and I'd just like to take a moment to applaud your cute dedication to buzz-words in your moaning-attacks - "cash cow" was I think exactly what you called ASN last time), we'll look at your assumptions again...

It's interesting, because (and just so this is comprehensive, I'll say this applies to both Adam and myself) what you've said is true - just to a point. That point being the moment at which you gleamed your hypothesis from the evidence...

You're right, neither of us have very much to do with the Audi marque on a day to day basis, Adam spends most of his time in a Jeep, and even now I'm sat in a Passat; but that doesn't really afford you to make the assumption that we therefore have no interest in the community. Surely the fact that even though neither of us have a fleet of Audis on the drive at the moment, but still invest time and money keeping the site running could be just as much an indicator that we must really care about the community? If we don't drive Audis, surely there can be no other reason to be running the site?

Oh no wait, that's it, it's because it's a Cash Cow™ - that's why we do it! I'm sitting in a gold plated Passat, posting on two (f**k it, I can afford it) diamond encrusted Laptops, lubricating my typing fingers with Caviar. Adam would be here to back me up but he's currently on an expenses-paid fact-finding mission somewhere in the South Pacific investigating how many Audi drivers there are on the average six-star cruise ship. As soon as he's back at ASN HQ in Monaco, I'll get him on here. You clown.

I think it's fair to say ASN isn't exactly swamped with things designed to dredge money from the poor unsuspecting users... In fact, we've a couple of banner-ads at either end of the page, and some sponsored forums (which lets be honest have just as much potential to be places where users can get good advice for free as the other areas of the site). I'm not going to get into numbers or reasons here, but I can honestly say that this isn't bringing-in anything like the funding which it could, or should, at the moment - and that's something which needs to be sorted out, however - i) we're spending all the time we can spare on maintaining and upgrading the site with higher priority, basically choosing to miss out on some revenue and therefore making larger contributions to overheads ourselves because we'd rather fix and add shiny, new, better stuff first, and only once that's done spend the time working on the coffers; and ii) even when the pen-pushing is done, and there's more showing on the ledger from advertising income, it still won't put us in profit a) because of the actual numbers and b) because we've always said what comes in willl always go back into the site. Even before we get to paying for things like the 'show' we put on at shows (as we started to in 2009), there are things like rental of a dedicated server, some bolt-on hardware options and the bandwidth it chews through on a monthly basis - and we're using a surprising (given the nature of the site) amount of premium (ie low-contention, not this "unlimited" s**t a lot of hosting companies palm folks off with) bandwidth. In 2009 and 2010 so far we're into thousands (GBP) spent on software - purchase/licencing/development. Then there are sundries and exceptionals on top - phone calls between folks running the stuff behind-the-scenes probably accounts for a good chunk of air-time (I could probably come off my £75pm (+ extras) line rental package if I could do all the communication required to run ASN in front of a computer, for free (and just in case we're on the verge of another couple of assumptions - ASN does not contribute to my, or anyone else's phone bill; and none of us begrudge it )). After that we're left with things more etherial like time - again, despite what you might('ve) assumed, none of us begrudge the time we donate (and we fullly understand the definition of the word 'donate') - in fact we probably all share the wish that we had an extra hour or two on the day for ASN.

So, to think that we're only in it for the money, and that we don't give a flying f**k about the Audi(-Sport.net) community can only, as far as I can work out, come from being either ill-informed (which you certainly aren't now, but I doubt you were even before this post, given that the discussion here between you and I isn't the only one to have ever taken place), desperately stupid, or a tragically cynical cretin. Whichever, you've got the straight facts above. I'll swear on whatever book you like that all the above is accurate, hopefully that's good enough. If you still think that we're all about fleecing people after reading it, well, that's up to you - my only request in that case would be that you piss and moan about it somewhere else.

Anyway, getting back on topic briefly (because there's not much more needs to be said about this at the moment), and to the Classifieds...

1) Just as much as you and a few others can see disadvantages to the current Classifieds set-up, and advantages to a more basic 'selling in a forum' type arrangement, some (us included) can see disadvantages to selling in the forums, and advantages to the current set-up.

2) Yes, the Classifieds system has suffered some pretty grim reliability issues; it has recently had some work which will hopefully resolve that, so it meets functional requirements at least - if not ideal aesthetics...

3) Yes, aesthetically the Classifieds system could be better, and more organised; that's on the cards too - but now it's been patched to the point it should be more reliable, it's not the most important thing with a requirement for man hours around here. Once some other things are sorted out, we'll be back to the Classifieds to work on things like the layout and organisation of categories.

4) You're right, it's not perfect at the moment, but as in 1-3 above we've got a handle on the situation, and changes are on the way. In the meantime, as you feel so aggrieved, we'll happily refund any money you've paid us to list items in the Classifieds. I'll write a cheque for £F**K.ALLp now, just let me know where to post it.

5) You're right, it'd be a REAL ballache to do a 'garage clearance' type sale in there. Perhaps a) we'd rather it didn't become a garage/boot-sale/jumble type place anyway, and b) if you really wanted to, you could spend a fraction of the time you have moaning, typing "eBay" or "Craigslist" or "Gumtree" into Google in the hope that maybe, just maybe, there's somewhere better suited to that kind of thing lurking on t'internet.

...In short...

The Classifieds as-is isn't ideal, but (albeit as of quite recently) it should be pretty reliable, there's no charge for using it, people don't have to use it; and as has been said (and to some extent proved by the fact we've already spent a while swearing at it to get it working better), it is an area we plan on refining and improving - but perhaps not with the immediacy you unfortunately feel owed.

Please, just have a day off (give it a rest at least until the next round of repairs/changes/upgrades to the Classifieds happen...)

Cheers,

Rob.

Rob, thanks for the comprehensive reply, it still leaves me in the dark about how/why this forum exists. I'm fully aware that you dont earn a penny from running it, but i'm also aware its not actually your board, its Adams. If i'm not mistaken, though i wasnt around back then, it originally existed as an aside to a tuning business or somesuch that adam was involved in, which makes sense. I'm also sure that this tuning business link no longer exists, either its been sold on/mothballed/whatever leaving the forum on its own.

I've never once suggested you personally are milking the website for all its worth, infact i'm well aware that you work on it in your spare time, without pay, or any other benefits, you've told me this before. Its not you thats putting the money into it though is it? The money comes from (and goes to) Adam, and thats the bit i dont understand. Why would someone with no involvement in the forum or community, be shovelling cash at it? You also claim to have spend thousands on software, yet other than a licence for vB, which is at most going to cost a few hundred quid a year, and the server rental, which is shouldnt be any more than £200 a month for a particularly shiney box, i'm struggling to see where else needs money spent on it.

Its seems to me its not here for the community, because any suggestions made by the community (or even your moderators) that dont fit your (or perhaps adams) wishes, gets ignored/canned/permenantly placed on the rear burner. This isnt the first issue thats come up about a forum feature thats disliked by many, yet because you (or perhaps adam) like it, its getting pushed along and everyone elses thaughts/opinions are getting canned.

You also say that if i have a pile of parts i want to sell i should use ebay or similar. I dont agree, if i have a pile of audi parts, then listing them on an Audi forum is to me a sensible first option, have a flick thru many of the posts on AudiSRS and RS246 and you'll see exactly that, someone listing a pile of desirable parts on a community board for community members to have first shout at.

I would suggest a poll was in order, to sample the communitys thaughts on whether we keep the existing system, or switch to the alternative, however no doubt that would either be ignored if it went against what you want, or simply locked/deleted like the recent controversial 8P poll about the post tagging. But that was done for the good of the community right?

Also: Galz, N8, instead of **************** with the thankyou button, why not post some actual comments/opinions.

Originally Posted by aragorn

Rob, thanks for the comprehensive reply, it still leaves me in the dark about how/why this forum exists. I'm fully aware that you dont earn a penny from running it, but i'm also aware its not actually your board, its Adams. If i'm not mistaken, though i wasnt around back then, it originally existed as an aside to a tuning business or somesuch that adam was involved in, which makes sense. I'm also sure that this tuning business link no longer exists, either its been sold on/mothballed/whatever leaving the forum on its own.

Accurate and not at the same time. ASN was never an aside to anything. ASN was merely hosted on AMD's server - briefly. That's pretty much the long and short of it.

I've never once suggested you personally are milking the website for all its worth, infact i'm well aware that you work on it in your spare time, without pay, or any other benefits, you've told me this before. Its not you thats putting the money into it though is it? The money comes from (and goes to) Adam, and thats the bit i dont understand. Why would someone with no involvement in the forum or community, be shovelling cash at it?

Accurate and not at the same time. It doesn't cost me a fortune, but I have, and do put time and money into ASN, in various ways. Adam puts money into it, and yes, while that which comes in goes back to him as above - there'd have to be a boatload more coming in for him to be in profit out of it.

I'm beginning to find it quite amusing that you point blank can't understand that the only reason any of us do it is so that the site's here... What would be my possible gain for bull****ting you about it? I can't speak with any real certainty about Adam's motivaion, but I can pretty confidently say that he does it because he takes pride in the place and it's not much more than that. The same goes for me, but over and above the pride taken in helping run what I believe is a overall a good site/community, I can add that I'm around and doing it because a) I do like Audis, even if I'm driving someone else's Passat instead at the moment; b) I like the site/community, and c) there's quite a lot of sentimental attachment for me with ASN - it's been a big and effective influence on me.

Honestly, if we're lying, cheating sons of *****es who only have the site online as a useless-for-the-community and helpful-for-our-fortune money collector, why are you still wasting your time (and money?) on it - 4,881 posts in two years must make you a proper sucker for punishment?

You also claim to have spend thousands on software, yet other than a licence for vB, which is at most going to cost a few hundred quid a year, and the server rental, which is shouldnt be any more than £200 a month for a particularly shiney box, i'm struggling to see where else needs money spent on it.

I've absolutely no f**king idea why I should be justifying what I've said to you, but still - as above, I've no reason to be bull****ting you. You're not far off on the server renatl costs. We pay for the licence of vB (two licences at the moment as it happens), the Classifieds engine, the software behind the .tv site, we've paid for software infrastructure that links it all together, we've also had a couple of things commissioned for our specific uses, and there are one or two things waiting in the wings which have cost money too. Again, we're into thousands for software - don't ask again, you'll not be shown receipts.

Its seems to me its not here for the community, because any suggestions made by the community (or even your moderators) that dont fit your (or perhaps adams) wishes, gets ignored/canned/permenantly placed on the rear burner. This isnt the first issue thats come up about a forum feature thats disliked by many, yet because you (or perhaps adam) like it, its getting pushed along and everyone elses thaughts/opinions are getting canned.

I like the way that when YOU and a handful of others have been knocked-back (but not completely without hope of change) on a request, it's suddenly that "ANY" requests are ignored/canned/permanently placed on the rear burner. One swallow a summer does not make. The prefix system in the 8P forum was an entirely different kettle of fish, as that was always just a trial to explore different ways of navigating the existing layout rather than making other changes which were regressional.

You also say that if i have a pile of parts i want to sell i should use ebay or similar. I dont agree, if i have a pile of audi parts, then listing them on an Audi forum is to me a sensible first option, have a flick thru many of the posts on AudiSRS and RS246 and you'll see exactly that, someone listing a pile of desirable parts on a community board for community members to have first shout at.

Well if you can empty all the **** out of your garage over there, why exactly are you bellyaching that you can't do it here?

I would suggest a poll was in order, to sample the communitys thaughts on whether we keep the existing system, or switch to the alternative, however no doubt that would either be ignored if it went against what you want, or simply locked/deleted like the recent controversial 8P poll about the post tagging. But that was done for the good of the community right?

As above, that was a different kettle of fish. It was a trial we ran to explore a compromise between viewpoints which were pretty much completely at odds. You can tell me I'm lying, but give a **** I will not, I can say with no fear of being struck-down that we were committed to pursuing that system, with any valuable/useful refinements suggested - by ANYONE - until the point it descended into bickering and point-scoring. That will all be remembered when it's time to revisit it.

Also: Galz, N8, instead of ***************, why not post some actual comments/opinions.

Cute. I'm not even going to bother...

If you want to play 'last word', lets carry on - but I'm only going to reiterate what I've said in this post and my last, as there really isn't anything else to be said at this point. Who knows, you might even turn out to be a fan of the revised Classifieds when it's had an overhaul. For now we're satisfied that you can't be, so we'll not be losing much sleep about your feelings toward the Classifieds or our corrupt and fraudulent administration until, and we'll not be dropping everything else (arguably considerably more pressing) in (likely vein) attempts to placate you.

If you stil have things to discuss following some proper reworking of the feature, fine (and I'm aware by saying that, even if you like it when it changes you'll have a moan just for your money's worth); if you still think we (myself and/OR Adam) are just corrupt and money-grabbing, frankly, sod ya - one thing we don't need in return for time and resource is *****ing born of a) being a cranky ******* unable to comprehend motives other than financial and b) third hand, likely incomplete, and possilbly inaccurate snippets of information gleamed from conversation with Mark.

Cheers,

Rob.

So... is there another classifieds somewhere else that is easier to use (and most importantly, works) and more active?

Originally Posted by wywywywy

So... is there another classifieds somewhere else that is easier to use (and most importantly, works) and more active?

yes,the classifieds is up and running now.....considering it is free to use I think its good.

Originally Posted by voorhees

yes,the classifieds is up and running now.....considering it is free to use I think its good.

Does that mean none of the many bugs in the classified section that appeared with the software change/down grade are not going to be fixed ?

Originally Posted by devonmikeyboy

Does that mean none of the many bugs in the classified section that appeared with the software change/down grade are not going to be fixed ?

I assumed the classifieds are working now but if you can post a list

Hi,

I don't want to sound negative or anything but this is my personal opinion, here is a list of things that would make the Classifieds actually usable, which I hope to see implemented in the near future if that's okay.

1. Ads are too closely packed together. There needs a bit of white space in between each ad, and the title also needs to be in bold.
2. When you click on a section, let's say "Engine and Exhaust", it doesn't display any ad, because the default "Ad per page" is set to 0.
3. So you can manually set the "Ad per page" to something like 24 each time, but when you click on "Page 2" it goes back to 0 again, so you can never get to page 2.
4. The default sorting is by "view count", which makes old ads look like they are still active. The default should have been sort by date.

Again these are my constructive suggestions not negative critisisms.

Many thanks.

thanks

The two biggest bugs to me are the pictures don`t line up with the adverts and when posting an advert 99% of the time i cannot upload a picture where i am ment to so just end up putting a picture at the bottom of my advert using photobucket .

for some reason we have a better ability with pics so PM me when posting an advert

Originally Posted by voorhees

thanks but a post count of 3 doesn't warrant telling us how to sort it try ebay

Well, if you don't appreciate my suggestions, that is okay, though that wasn't what I was hoping to hear. I'll try eBay instead as you have suggested.
And my post count has nothing to do with it, but perhaps but day job does - I am a software developer of a B2B web catalogue system.

Originally Posted by wywywywy

Well, if you don't appreciate my suggestions, that is okay, though that wasn't what I was hoping to hear. I'll try eBay instead as you have suggested.
And my post count has nothing to do with it, but perhaps but day job does - I am a software developer of a B2B web catalogue system.

Your suggestions are good but their is conflicts as your post count does count for something as we have traders swanning in using the site but being a software developer doesn't count for s*** as the software for the site hase already been developed thanks,by all means use Ebay and pay the fees .