Classifieds Listings: FOR SHAME!

yeh it's not an easy one to guage I guess.

Since posting, I have had a few people tell me that their businesses have rocketed since listing in the classifieds. It does seem to be an excellent advertising medium for those with stores, tho I still think that it makes little difference to what I do. Of course any difference is a bonus, but I would say I still get 90% of my residents from word of mouth.

i used to work in advertsing for a newspaper. they purposely randomized their classified section to prevent such abuse. if better search tools/categories were available, this might work for SL as well.

In addition to ordering by most recent date, I would like to see a search by date (or date range) option. Would be nice to view past classifieds in this manner...

Mabye they don't know it's there for their shoping pleasure!

As in is there a there there?

This "joking one upmanship" is the equivalent of tactics used by spammers and those who clog up search engines, at the expense of legitimate business who play by the rules!

Don't get sucked into the hype with week excuse, you're better than that, Hiro!

Let sort it by date, descending. If you want to be at the top constantly, you'll also constantly be paying! That's a lot better than being a total jackass.

Regards,

-Flip

Do you really think its an excuse? I mean do you really think I felt that my ads being nearer the top was worth the ridiculous way it made the title look? Well I don't feel I have to convince anyone anyway lol. But seriously, the ones who are not 'playing by the rules' are those who are not doing it so blatantly, but they're doing it alright.

It was no tactic, it was just something that got a bit silly, but I really didn't expect people to get so upset over it!

Yeah, I thought it was obviously a joke as well.

If anything, these people are doing us a favor by making it so blatantly obvious that LL has to fix it.

If they didn't do it, then people would probably leave it as sort by name and be none the wiser that the ones at the top got there by gaming the system.

To be honest, I like the system as it is, because I know people will resort immediately.

There is a way that cannot be gamed. Make it so that the client only displays you own adds and nobody elses. That way yours will always appear at the top and you won't see any spam at all.

Does this sound stupid? We have a precident with llGiveInventry()...

this is no different than someone having a AAA gas station to get in first in the yellow pages, or an actor taking the name Willy Aaron in order to be first on the pile of headshots. It happens not only all over the web, but throughout life. The truth of the matter is that any gimmick will only go so far as to get someone's attention. It will take substance to hold it. And yeah, I was a bit annoyed to find my ad (without the dozen spaces etc) buried in the bottom of classifieds, but oh well. I reasoned that I should have done my research.

When all is said and done, were I to have done this the issue of my shame over it would be quite minimal. Treating people well is a different issue entirely. I will forgive an advertiser for using a gimmick to get my attention (particularly if it makes me laugh), but i'm much much slower to forgive when someone has gotten my attention and then been full of hot air or been obnoxious or rude after. THAT is the thing to be ashamed of: poor behaviour.

Well I avoid rigged land listings just because they annoy me and because they don't usually give an immediate indication of where the land is. List under sim please until we have a proper search facility!

OK, Quick! Time for Feature Suggestion Lightning Round...

Top 5 tweaks to the inworld classifieds listings:

1) sort by date
2) remove the ability to: ******(((((((my ad)))))*****
3) what else???

GO!

Fun way to do this, Jesse.


4) Image preloader. WHY? Because let's see, you can go to a store inworld with many textures and while you read one box, others in proximity will load. But Classifieds is toooo myopic. If I wanna browse quickly, I get bogged down for an image to load on each one. It'd be much better if during my reading of the newest ad, the ones on the bottom start to load up too—transparently, behind-the-scenes. Then, clickity-click-click!

IT ENCOURAGES VIEWS.


and errr


5) Randomize order, Shuffle button. Maybe the best order is "no" order. I KID YOU NOT! Ever seen peeps open up classifieds in the newspaper and swirl a pen around and then mark something and it suddenly becomes that more fascinating?

- Delete ADs with blank names.
- Dont let people create ADs with blank names or special characters.
- Do not pass go. Do not collect 250 L$.

A resounding I concur to this. I would further it by saying maybe the classifeds should be available to registered users only-more a yellow pages than a classified. Charge people say 250 linden to register thier business name or SL Name and weed out the ones that are obvious ploys. Then all subsequent ads must be submitted under the registered name.

Yeah its labor intensive pipe dream, but its a good one.

Seems like the simplest and most effective thing to do is just sort by date.

I would prefrer that we only see drop down menu's for search parameters. When we are satisfied with our search selection we hit the "search button" and only then do we see the classidied list we want.

Example drop down selections

Search by name
search by date
Search by category
Search random
Search by price
Search by mature

etc

Yes, you can say that this is what the Event calendar is for - but...

I have two long-standing, and recurring game shows at my place: Payment Podium & Trivial Obsession, that I'd love to use the Classified Ads to advertise for.

Problem is - there's no category that seems to suit them.

I'm not going to blow L$250 if there isn't an appropriate category that matches what I'm trying to advertise for on at least a high level.

That's my suggestion, Jesse - a few more categories.

Make the ads cheaper! A new basic player needs 5 weeks to save up enough $L for an ad...let alone the time it takes to save up to upload textures for their creation. Then once posted their ad will expire 3 weeks before they'll have enough $L to renew the ad. Make it cost $100L so they can renew every 2 weeks, or make the ad last 5 weeks!

Or US$1 on LindeX - that's 5 ads for a cup of coffee at Starbucks!

Sort by date would be a fantastic start; also, how about that ability to insert into URL instead of an in-world location, thus causing the teleport button to be replaced with "View Web Site" on a button?

Regards,

-Flip

I've never cared for the categories, tbh. Here's the current inworld list (for easy reference) with my thoughts on the categories:

Shopping (nebulous; can include almost anything)
Land Rental (sounds like Property Rental to me)
Property Rental (sounds like Land Rental to me; but could be any "property" as far as I know**)
Special Attraction (more nebulous stuff; isn't this the same as Events?)
New Product (define "product"; define "new"; meaningless category afaic)
Employment (help wanted or seeking?)
Wanted (I want to sell you....)
Service (maybe "For Hire"?)
Personal (how about adding an "s"; this sounds too personal to me)


Many of the above seem too undefined to me. Like "Shopping". It's a meaningless category afaic and seems overly ripe for abuse. And why are "Land Sales" not under Classifieds? They should be imo. Right now they appear to get special attention which I'd venture is difficult to justify. If "Land Sales" gets a tab, shouldn't we also have "Animation Sales", or "Clothing Sales"?

Seems to me the best way to control relevancy of the categories is to give them clearly defined segments. After that's done I'm betting enforcement would be much easier and incur less outrage.

For example, under Classifieds I'd propose starting with the following categories:

Land Sales: First Land (Linden Lab controlled; separated out for newbie ease of use)
Land Sales: Auction (more LL controlled land)
Land Sales: General (Main Grid only)
Land Sales: Private Sims (private sim only; calls attention to uniqueness of this option)

Property: Lots for Rent (bare parcel)
Property: Homes for Rent (one home/estate on one parcel)
Property: Townhomes for Rent (multiple independent structures on one parcel)
Property: Apartments for Rent (one or more structures subdivided into living spaces on one parcel)

Products - Avatar Body (items limited to avatar "Appearance>Body Parts" options)
Products - Avatar Clothing (items limited to avatar "Appearance>Clothes" options)
Products - Animations
Products - Worn Objects (prim objects - from hair to jewelry)
Products - Placed Objects (prim objects - prefab homes to pets; static or dynamic)
Products - Vehicular Objects (prim objects - avatar-interfaced movement)
Products - Scripts
Products - Sounds
Products - Textures/Images

Services For Hire
Help Wanted
Personals

Now in order to ensure everyone understands the definitions of these categories, I'd suggest that right above the "Search" button in each category there be a button like "Definition" or "Explain" so that the category selected under the drop down could then be explained to both those advertising and those searching.

Next, I'd expect there to be some overlap as there are items that cross boundaries. For example, some clothing sets include both "Avatar Clothing" and "Worn Objects". If a set includes both then the seller could advertise in both should they desire. However, if someone created, for example, a prim clothing accessory such as a handbag and loaded it under "Avatar Clothing" they'd be posting an ad incorrectly. Similarly if they only sold prim hair and placed in ad under "Avatar Body". Personally, I'd institute a grace period over which people could become accustomed to any new limits/definitions after which LL simply charges them twice the ad rate for the misuse of a category. Fines could even scale; 2x's the ad rate on first offense, 4x's second offense, 16x's third offense, etc and all the way up to a ban on submitting classifieds. I'd suggest the terms and conditions for using the Classifieds be included on the Profile menu along with the category definitions (so they can read them before it's too late).

Finally, I'd mirror the in-world classifieds with the forum classifieds. It allows people to comment about an item listed inside SL in the mirror-image forum. If someone sees a misuse of a category, they can point it out in the forum mirror and draw attention to it. There would hopefully also ensue some discussion that ideally would assist LL in tuning and tweaking the categories to suit everyone's needs. Right now there isn't an easy way to provide this sort of feedback (with the exception of AR's, Hotline posts, aso).

Anyway, these are just some ideas off the top of my head which I thought I'd put on the table. Nothing sacred. Rip it up.

** Can people Rent objects? If so that's something to be included somewhere.

So some how when a parcel is sold it's land, and when it's rented it's poperty???? Also, there is already a dedicated menu for land sales.

Yes im glad i chose the name Barnesworth - acordingly Barnesworth Anubis Prefab[ulous] Homes and Furniture and Barnes Boutique are kinda near the top, lucky meee!

Although I have seriosuly considered renaming it to [][]+++****AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABarnesworth Anubis Prefab[ulous] Homes and Furniture

Poor poor old Zapoteth Designs..

As noted in my comments, I was equally baffled at that distinction (which is currently in place). However, I decided to continue it with the proviso that "Land" is the term used when issues of tier are involved, whereas "Property" is used when there is no tier issue involved. A person can rent "Property" as a basic account. They cannot have "Land" as a basic account.

I find your definitions equally as baffling. Surely property is simply something more than just a bare plot, whether it be rent or sale? In any event it seems silly to have both, I agree. I should point out that any form of residence on someone elses private estate requires no more than a basic account, that first land would not need a classified category as it is not resident owned, and so we are left witrh simple main grid sales. And we have a menu for that already.