"* First letter of Classified listing now limited to A-Z"

Will that really help?

Classifieds after this next update:



"AAAAAAAAAAAA STAR WARS MEGA STORE"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAA RENT MY LAND"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAA XXX PARTIES ALL THE TIME"

Was it so hard that they couldn't implement sort by date and eliminate gaming the classifieds altogether?

Yeah, no kidding.

What really galls me here isn't so much that the idea is really stupid but that LL actually think it's of any value.

Good lord, why are they trying to re-invent the wheel using a sharply-angled box?

Making a rudimentary AdRank system here would fix all their classified problems. How? User-defined classified ad prices with a minimum bid of L$250, or whatever. Tracking of people clicking the Teleport button. Rank against the first metric, then against the second metric. Come on, this isn't 1995. Humanity has already discovered many excellent ad-spam fighting tools.

Both would create a "rich get richer" effect.

My suggestion for easiest way? When the Classifieds tab is clicked, the scrollbar starts at a random location in the list instead of at the top.

Wow. Take an already poor user experience and make it worse.



Only if the rich have money to spend and their business can justify it. In such a case, good for them.

It should be sorted by date added, that way if they want to keep their listing at the top, they have to take the time and the money to keep it there... Considering they would drop pretty quickly, L$250 each time they want to get back in the top 10 would add up VERY quickly, even for the rich.

Sort by most recent submission would work too, yes. God, anything but this silly alphabetical nonsense.

Aweee *PREEN* wouldn't be allowed in the listing!

I hearby announce the new name of my business in SL....

Aardvark Rentals!

I vote for date added. I wonder why they didn't do that. Maybe this is a step along the way to doing that?

coco

AAAAAAAAAAAA *PREEN* would work well.

Aimee's *PREEN* ?

If you're going to say that, why not say "only if they're flexible enough to change their business's name to adapt to available advertising, in such a case, good for them?"

I also don't see that a random scrollbar would "make the user's experience worse". I've seen UI guidelines that recommend starting scrollbars for single selection lists in the middle so that the maximum distance the user will ever have to scroll is halved. Is the user going to want to view the same classifieds over and over again?

When I designed my PTP Teleporter Directory, I decided upon no text listings and to stick purely with texture-based adverts so I wouldn't run into this sort of gaming. I also randomize the list, so nobody has an advantage over another person for the listing and has a fair shake. That way, people are taken-in by a good visual advert rather than some gamed "AAaaaaaaaA!!!!*** Choose Me" nonsense.

I agree, allow us to sort the classifieds, or better yet have them rotate position somehow.

Because that's stupid and hurts branding to fit within the confines of someone else's poor implementation. Bidding for placement, ranked against popularity actually focuses on user experience by placing the most serious and well-trafficked businesses at the top -- which is good since you want the crem de la crem, not the junk. Linden Lab already understands this to some extent in Find Places, which ranks according to traffic. Which is definitely a good idea.



Well, that's nice, but the middle isn't the same as random. With random placement no one knows what to expect. The user should always know what to expect.

If it's so stupid and hurts their business so much, why not let them do it? I mean, they'll suffer, right? "Someone else's poor implementation?" Hey, capitalism itself could be considered "someone else's poor implementation"



In the Classifieds, though? I don't always want the crem de la crem in the classifieds. I already know about Ice Dragon, Preen, Dreamland, Skin Doctors, Chip, The Edge, etc. (and, yes, Templar Botworks - and yea, I think the SiegeBot is an awesome bit of building ) I don't want to scroll through all of them time and time again when I'm looking to find new stuff.



For Find, where the purpose is to find something specific that you want, fast. Classifieds does not have the same purpose (if it did it wouldn't need a seperate tab!)



Does the user want to know what to expect from the Classifieds? Isn't the whole idea to introduce the user to new, and thus unexpected, things?

That'd only save time if the user was aware of what was going to be in the list beforehand and thus could scroll up or down towards it. This is a changing list, so the chances of that are not certain and in fact, the user could theoretically scroll through the list one and a half times before finding a selection they wanted because they needed to go up and then down to find something interesting to them. Thus, this is a really bad idea.

Honestly, the only fair solution I can think of is to sort by creation date, this current 'fix', is only going to punish people with valid names (I.E. *PREEN*, names beginning with numbers, etc.) and not prevent people from gaming the system per se.

I'm wondering why they are all jumbled together in the first place. It would be nice if you started with categories like you do in a newspaper, so that you could browse..

Animations
Buildings
-Pre Fab
-Custom
-Textures
Clothing
-Women's
-Men's
-Tinies
Entertainment
-Clubs
-Sports
-Misc
Events
Furniture
etc...

I know you can search on category, but it's search--I don't think you can just browse--either way, the categories are too few and vague. They should define them further.

Of course, listing within each category will still need to be ranked in some fashion, but i won't be so important as getting the top slot on the entire classifieds listing.

And really, you'd think the Lindens would set it up like google does their listings. Add a featured spot for $$/month more and when someone searches for a keyword, then that add is featured on the right. Etc. etc. They certainly haven't utlilized the classified to it's full potential.

Because the point is to help the user find useful products and services. If the classified system doesn't work, it has no value for either the advertiser or the user. If useless products and services are being presented because of easy spamming, the system isn't working properly and the user experience sucks.

Way to tip your hand.

How about alphabetical by zone the classified is in? I see a run on all the "A" zones now.... *secretly buys island called "A"*

That wasn't supposed to be "tipping my hand"; I didn't actually mean to attack capitalism, although I could understand that I miswrote and sounded like I did. What I was trying to say that working within the constraints of the provided rules - even if they're not ideal for you - rather than complaining about them is what it's all about, right?

And I agree, we don't want "useless products and services presented because of easy spamming". But the way to do that is to address the issue of "useless products and services" per se. There always has to be someone on top of the list, after all. If the well-known firms are there, that might help out newbies, but once they've been here a few weeks they'll already know about them and seeing their ads again won't be useful. If they've established they don't have what they want, they'll scroll past them and then somebody has to be the first person in the section for people who spent only the minimum fee on their classified.

Whatever metric they rate people on will be gameable. The only way to ensure it can't is to use no metric, that is, randomness. (And yes, I acknowledge that doesn't provide a great UI.)

What is "ideal for me" doesn't really matter. I don't use the classifieds from either end, consumer or advertiser, because I think they're useless shit at the moment.

The intent of a "classified" advertising system is to classify small advertisements into groups, wherein individuals can easily find ads according to their classification. In a traditional classified ad space, top billing is given to those who pay the most. A classifieds system works if people can find what they want and advertisers can count on being found by qualified buyers.

If the system isn't created with maximum value for the end user in mind, it has neither value to the user, who will not use it, nor to the advertiser, who will not be found by anyone because no one uses it.

This discussion revolves around the presumption that Linden Lab cares about providing a useful tool for their residents. So, the "provided rules" are not and should not be immutable. If Linden Lab doesn't care about providing value and improving the experience, then we can talk about working within the stupidity of the current system. Obviously, though, that's not true, as refinements are ongoing.

The list, sorted or not, is rather useless no matter what. When I bring it up, it is only to do a keyword search through it, never to manually scroll through the whole thing.

I think they should keep spaces as a valid first character. Eventually, the first 40 items in the list would have so many spaces, that they aren't an eyesore at all... They're completely off the left side of the window!

I don't care about one-line descriptions. I want keywords and a full description.


"A!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GO 2 MY STOR!!" is valid even now...

See, that's a useless system. I'd very much like to reward relevant advertisers for making good ads. Rank by teleport-button clicks, I say!