Classified: For Advertising or Commenting or Both?

Why not just skip that part of the thread? Sheesh. What a bunch of cynics.

That's a great idea!

Chip,

It is not cynicism - God forbid that someone have criticism of the lofty praise heaped upon content creators. You can label it what you want, it is something that people notice all the time about that forum. If it didn't constantly bump threads to the top, it would be fine - but as it stands, the setup is bad enough - when you add in the inane prattle that bumps the threads, it is no wonder the work of smaller designers gets lost in the sea of sycophants.

no no, you're right. Giving someone a compliment is inane prattle. What was I thinking?

I do. I even said I did. Sheesh right back at ya.

I think a lot of people feel the same way I do but wont post for fear of being put down as a grumpy wet blanket or something. I have felt like this about the advertising forums for a long time but I have dealt with it because its how it is. I do look past all the one liners, I deal with it.

The only reason I expressed my views on it is because this thread popped up as a discussion on the topic.

Bah I give up. You know what I'm talking about. As Loki said, sheesh right back at ya.

I think it's the bumping part that is the problem. It prevents those who don't have such a network of friends from having their product noticed.

coco

One evening I was clicking through New Posts and I realized that nearly every post was from Classifieds, and that the same person had gone through every thread and complimented everything.

You know, there's nothing really wrong with this, but it is a little irritating. I can see this particular person thinking "I need to give encouragement to everyone! Everyone needs encouragement!" Why dismiss such a well-meaning gesture?

Jonquille said she sometimes feels guilty about expressing a "thank-you" to her well-wishers -- I feel the same way, but sometimes I do it anyway. I feel ungrateful if I don't at least say thank you.

Just create a templated form letter saying thank you to your well-wishers. You can see an example of mine below:

Mea culpa... I apologise for this error of forum etiquette, but in my defence, if you use New Posts to find the forum posts to read, it isn't so obvious which section is which. Until I did exactly this, posted information to a classified, I wasn't properly aware that classifieds were classifieds.

Thing is, I am much more experienced in world than I am on the forum, and it is only recently that I have started posting regularly. I managed to get through my first year of SL with an average of only one post per week. In reality it was more like six posts one day, don't visit the forums for six weeks. For this reason, although I look as though I am old enough in SL terms to know better, I am actually quite ridiculously ignorant about the forums.

It also begs the question about what it is right to do if someone posts lies or half truths in the classified ads. In the RW, at least in the UK, you cannot publish a misleading ad without risking prosecution. What happens if the really cool skin you saw on the forum turns out to make your avatar look orange or have one eyebrow different from the other? I have bought things in world (skins are particularly bad) which look nothing like their photoshopped advertising on the forum, and which creators have refused to refund on because they have made the item no transfer. There are some pretty well-known creators who do this, even if they have the transaction record to prove that the item was bought.

The forums are quite a scarily hostile place to be, with a lot of unwritten rules which take some time to learn, and if these forums are the only ones you ever frequent, and you do that sporadically, it is inevitable that you'll (or I'll) make mistakes.
Cali

You bring up some good points. For me, if I buy something that doesn't look like the ad, or there some other problem, I IM the seller in world first. Usually they will correct the problem. Maybe it's something they didn't see, or something was wrong with their computer. I had one skin have lines in it under the neck. I sent pics to the seller with a note. He replaced it. If that doesn't work, then maybe take it to the forum. But to post the problem in the ad without first contacting the seller seems somewhat harsh to me.

If you've had a bad experience with an item and the seller refused to work with you, then the thread they advertised it in is the place to bring it up. But, there's a way to do it without making shitty comments about the poster. State the facts, post a picture, and let people draw their own conclusions and go in with their eyes wide open.

The comments I was talking about are personally insulting comments about the creator. I've seen some of the New Products threads get to 3 or 4 pages of back and forth high-school squabbling before a mod finally locked them down.

This is something i have mentioned before, they so need to fix this.

- I comment on 2 things:

New designers: Even if i dont like the item they make, i always tend to post something, "Oh that is cute" so i can encourage them to work harder and be better, becase they need all the encourage they can get.

The rest, i just post on something i like, and something i would wear.

There is people in this game.. (Not saying who) that IM me in world, and say:

" POST ON MY THREAD " and they even give me a damn LINK to it!
sometimes i dont even post.. if i dont like the item

But this has happend with 2 designers.

Why would they want this? i have no idea.. as if posting in the forums will increase the money you make

The other thing about posting comments in Classifieds, you can't tell if a post showing up in a New Post Search is for a new item or one you've already seen. So you get excited seeing someone's "New from ..." only to see it's an old item that's been bumped up.

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