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

This is fixed? I was in favor of seeing classifieds scrapped altogether.

We need real issues fixed. Not appease greed or forum whiners.

Wow. That's impressive.

Good thing they kept the forums, anyway.

I was guilty of using spaces

I will no longer do that. I changed my classified ad to adhere to the new standards (because it was still on there with all the stupid spaces), I decided to try something first, though... and it worked. Numbers are allowed as the first character on classifieds. Wonder if that's a bug or a feature?

Limiting Classifieds to 'A-Z' is just the very first step. We have some great people working on this project (including input from a pretty famous expert on the subject) so please bear with us as we shift development resources in the near future to make classifieds in SL much more robust and dynamic.

The Classifieds in world seem like a waste of space. I am quite the shopper and I have never even looked at the Classifieds in world. I have seen posts like these with pics of the Classifieds and how they are abused and it seems they should just go bye bye. I guess the Classifieds in world would be helpful to people who don't look at the forums though.

I rely on the businesses I buy from to post in the forums, and they always do.

Ah, but most SLers (I have heard the numbers put at 85 to 95% & I believe Robin or Philip said that approx. only 15% use forums) don't even venture into the forums.

That's what I like to hear. A function like this is too important to do half-way.

Frankly, I don't see what keeps people from just putting a single A in front of all those spaces, so nothing really changes..... save for a lone A in front.......

Also...
Instead of "Yard sale"
You get "A Yard Sale"

Instead of "Great chunk of land"
You get "A great chunk of land"

Aaaaaaawesome Lightsabers!!
Aaaaaabsolutely Aaaaaamazing Aaaaaapparel!

etc etc etc.

In the two weeks before the Classifieds system was introduced, I advertised in the forums and got a total of zero sales.

Since I have been advertising in the Classifieds, I average one sale per day and have taken on two custom commissions.

I'n happy. And I'm well below the "starting with A" listings. All it takes is the right choice of category, well-chosen keywords and residents who know how to use a search facility. For my primary keyword and category, I'm one of only 4 businesses that come up.

Not my argument here I know, but I think this statement is kind of msisleading or wrong.

Classified are (to most people), intended to be like the classifieds in the newspaper I think. These are listed by category only and how much money you make or have usually has nothign to do with it.

What I dont understand is why peole are even using this new classified system!

I find the whole paying 250 lindens thing really quite offensive.

How could you divide up the rich from the poor and the "good" players from the "losers" any more effectively or deliberately than to institute a fee for classifieds which is out of the range of the majority of the population?

It's an outrageous completely over the top fee for a service that attempts to emulate a RL service, which is free in most cases. I dont know anyone who "paid" to put a classified advertisement up in RL for years. There are numerous free services and newspapers devoted entirely to the concept and most mainstream newspapers either dont charge, or charge a minimal fee. They make the money off the advertising space.

To emulate a RL classified service, it should be:

a) *strongly* categorised and monitored for content
b) entirely or mostly, free of charge.

This particular service is just elitists and fools advertising to each other IMO.

It's certainly not worth my money at the moment, but I disagree that it should be free. Newpapers charge for classifieds all the time, so there's certainly precedent for such listings. At any rate, if you do any sort of business at all, L$250 isn't much money. And if you don't want to pay that much, there are alternative channels.

You can't argue with the obvious demand for the service, though, even at that price.

AAA-1 SUREKILL PEST ELIMINATION

Wait, SL doesn't have bugs, does it?
Well. It's completely infested, in a sense, but it's an X-Files Reference.
Oh.

I get all the information I need out of using the "All" tab 90% of the time. For me, that works better than the classifieds.

I don't use this nearly enuff, but I should.

That's why I said they would be helpful to people who don't frequent the forums

With the new change, the SL classifieds system now looks like an RL classifieds system, pretty much. I've not yet seen a fix IRL for things like AAAAAAAAAAA Zymurgy Supplies.

Has anyone else?

Who in the world even pays attention to the goofy first listings? If I am looking for something I go straight to search. I then look for a Name that has a description that conveys information I can use. If I am looking for a beach ball for instance, I will look for businesses that tells me they might have what I want. Polly's Wogs will get passed over for Bob's Beach Supply instantly.

exactly. I dont care where my business is in the listing. Honestly, even in the phone book, I feel kinda weird going to "AAACE PLUMBING" or "AAA-A1 ELECTRICIANS". I usually look for the company that says "Since 1953" or "All blahblah certified electricians" versus "AAAA-ANDY'S AAAAWESOME AAELECTRIC".

Our stuff shows up in the search, which is all that matters.

Thing is, if I'm looking at a page of classified ads IRL, I don't typically start at the top left and read down - and I don't know anyone who does. I look for eye-catchers. That can be bigger ads - for which people paid more money - or it can be cleverly selected highlight phrases.

I laughed sharply enough to cause bladder discomfort.

/me salutes gravely

When I worked for a book that has pages made of yellow, they had people to call customers who did that and tell them that if that was not the REAL name of their business, they could not list as such. As far as having software that will do that, I have yet to hear of it, but then again, I do live under a rock

That looks silly and bad user interface. Simpler: have the list start at a random position at the top, one per user per session. You'd have to scroll down to find the As Bs ....

Why don't we just take a sample out of MIRC:

In IRC chat rooms start often with
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! To get high listing.
IRC allows you to turn off non-numerical rooms and sort by name or people in the room. Couldn't we do it to sort by different standards and have the option to remove non-numerical headers?

Hows about it just randomizes the listing whenever the window pops up. That way it'd be like first-listing lotto.

I still don't see the point of being listed first. I still don't think that's what makes people's choices... Unless you need a prim-dong NOW! and have NO! TIME! TO! LOSE!...

then i suppose you'd go with the first listing you saw.

Well, that didn't take long.

Everything on top of the listing now starts with "0PEN!" like.. "0pen! - $Money Tree$"

nice. that whole A-Z thing really puts a kink in a moron's style doesn't it.