Please reconsider closing the Classifieds Forums

Not if you steal the car!!

i think closing the classified forum is a dumb idea, why not have both....

Its nice to get a view of what ppl want and let them leave comments on your items.

And if you cant log in to SL for some reason you can acess the forums from somewhere else and view what your friends have created or w.e.. lol

I agree that the classified section here on the forums should not be closed. What about, perhaps, doing a hybrid? If you post something from the forums, it would show up in the game. Likewise, if you post a classified in the game, it would appear on the forums. It would bring about the best of both worlds!

One could start a group for classified ads. You don't have to be in the group to post messages.

Alternative : Move to third party website... hmm I think theres a few around, and announcing that your doing so would of course be great advertising and totally on topic in this thread!

One door closes, another one opens...

I think the classified forums do serve a purpose - but the replacement isn't live yet so we don't really know how it will work out.

What I do know is that the classified forums don't work very well. You never get negative feedback - the few times this has happened there has been uproar. Most positive feedback is fake.

Even though I still want to preserve the classifieds, I have to admit Enab has raised some really valid points (you might have to thresh it out of his sarcasm). SL for many is a fantasy, but it's not ALL fantasy, otherwise stipends would be unlimited and you could grief to your hearts content. The question is where do you draw the line between fantasy and real world concepts? These limits -- defining the borders and boundaries -- are a common cause of debate and even conflict here in the forums.

In a world where you can essentially join for free, should there be a cost of doing business?

If all you want is a fantasy, you can create products, sell them for peanuts and your marketing can be your friends and the people hovering around you in a sandbox.

However, if you want to make a business of it then should you not expect startup costs and ongoing expenses? Sometimes those startups costs might be the need to buy L$ (in Enab's case), but it might just be time (prob in Cocoa's case). If you want to be more aggressive in terms of building market awareness, then you need to pay for things like advertising, events, and other marketing programs.

It is going to get tougher to walk in as a newbie and do business in SL as the market opportunity increases. Not only will general content quality increase, but as the potential returns grow, there will be more competition from more serious contenders. There is no avoiding this reality, given the current design and plans of Linden Lab. When do you start making the realities, not the fantasies, of being a business person (in SL) clear?

(in case you are still wondering at this point, I'm asking questions not trying to dictate a course of action)

p.s. I hope people don't start spamming the gallery with for-profit products... it happens too much already.

Bad! Bad! Bad!

Selling in not allowed in the Sandbox sims. Selling in the sandbox areas is likely to get you abuse reported.

Sure, siting vendors in the sandboxes or having people wandering around badgering people to buy stuff would be ba. But just leaving a nice object lying around in the sandbox while you work on it can result in people coming up and saying, "Dude, are you selling that? I'll pay you for it!"

Does the ban on sandbox selling then actually require them to reply "Actually I would, but if you wanna get it you have to wait a few weeks while I save up to rent a vendor space, 'cos I can't sell it here?"

(This isn't exaggeration, I'd genuinely like to know.)

yes, I was not referring to aggressive salesmanship in the sandboxes -- although there are people that unfortunately do it. Just like there are people who come to my store, rez their objects on the ground, and start pitching my customers.

(re: the latter, for showing that they are such a fundmental flaw of a human being, they get insta-banned from my land)

I was thinking more along the lines of what winston said -- and I believe that many people making great stuff have been "discovered" in the sandbox and then had word of mouth spread, without them being aggressive salesmen at all. The ones who get aggressive are usually have a talent/greed ratio out of wack on the wrong side.

Winston -- there are places where you can rent store space VERY cheaply if all you want to do is toss up a few prims. So yes, if you are making something cool in the sandbox and someone comes up and says "where can i get that!", you can just point them to a "pick" in your profile that landmarks a vendor location.

Great Idea...there is more on that idea in this thread /invalid_link.html . A group has been started to try to implement this.

MJ

Thank you, Linden Lab, for reconsidering. The planned changes are a fair tradeoff. Thank you also to Brace for posting my please to Hotline - I wanted to get a consensus going here before I posted there.

Thank you Christiano, Brace, and all the people who stood for the New Products area, and finaly, LL for changing their mind. I am truely impressed and happy.

Yay! Thank you LL, and Brace, and you too Cris.

Well at least in the brief 1 day of glory my classifieds forum had, I learned I can finally handle your gimpy screen shots

Hot diggity! And Cristiano, keep yours open, too. They offer yet another option.

coco

P.S. And while we're thanking people, mucho thanks to LL for reconsidering!

P.S. oh yeah duh I see we already did thank LL!

I was very happy to see that too. I love my GIMP.