New way of doing classifieds - subscribing for notifications on specific gear

Jonathanthomas83 · July 2023

I know that classifieds is free and it's great. Thank you!

The problem:
However, every time I miss out on a piece of gear, I kick myself that I didn't see it the night before. Of course, with the current system there's no way to get notifications when a specific piece of gear is listed by a member.

What I'm suggesting might be convoluted, but it's an idea that could lead to a better system in future, perhaps.

TL,DR;
Starting from a given date, all members who wish to list something, create a specific thread with the title of the name of the piece of gear. Let's say a "Boss BD-2". Once sold, the POST is marked as such, but the thread is kept open for the next person to search for and list their Boss BD-2 on there, with a picture, price, condition, etc. Therefore, we build a library of gear in our classifieds, and people can subscribe to threads (gear) so that they are notified when a piece of gear they want comes up for sale.

Yes, this does open up the possibility that someone will have their name and gear listed on multiple threads at any given time, if they are selling multiple things, but I don't see the issue with that and for me, the upshot is worth that.

If this were to become a thing (which clearly needs more thought), I'd suggest starting a new section, for the short term, so that the gear list builds up separately from regular classifieds. Until it starts to sustain itself.

Again, don't shoot me, it's just an idea and happy to listen to other people's thoughts on the matter. I fully imagine that it'll never take off!

Roland · July 2023

An alternative is to set up a notification preference which tells you about every new FX£ For Sale thread.

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/195217/setting-your-notification-preferences

TTony · July 2023

Roland said:

An alternative is to set up a notification preference which tells you about every new FX£ For Sale thread.

As Classifieds Mod, Roland get a % of every sale, and he just wants to make sure that you get notified of every new thread to increase the temptation levels, increase the sales, and increase his take.

A few challenges with your suggestion @Jonathanthomas83 ;

Rarely is a FS thread a single post. There tends to be a bit of chat (you forgot pics, price, has it got velcro, would you take £4.99, if only it was pink with dayglo sparkles, I'd be all over it, etc, etc), so you'd be getting a lot of irrelevant notifications and you'd also have to hunt through a load of chat to spot a new FS listing post.
People tend (because we encourage them to) put all their FS items into a single thread - hence 6 pedals go into a single thread often with a single pic, rather than being spread over 6 separate threads. The latter adds more workload to the seller.
Searching for the thread for your specific pedal is also problematic - we all know how "unusual" the search function is here, so it's something else that makes it harder for the seller.
Someone looking to buy a common item might have to look through a long thread, with a few examples still unsold. That makes it competitive (lowest price will typically win) for the seller, and probably depress prices very visibly (not encouraging for the seller).

Not shooting you 'cos suggestions are always good, but there are quite a few downsides to that suggestion.

Jonathanthomas83 · July 2023

Yeah I’m not saying it’s without its flaws, but just an idea. Would need some rules. Anyway, something to ponder.

Paul_C · July 2023

Alternatively:

A Clockwork Orange was a big highlight of Bristol Film Festival

S56035 · July 2023

I'd rather sort out the lack of ability to unsubscribe from a thread (F1Thread I'm looking at you!)first but a decent idea though.

barnstorm · July 2023

I wonder if the same thing (enabling @Jonathanthomas83 's GAS

Image: https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/plugins/EmojiExtender/emoji/fb/3.gif

) could be achieved more easily by creating a separate category in Classifieds for WTB posts – or separate categories if it would be helpful to have one for guitars, one for pedals etc.

WTB posts as things stand tend to disappear out of sight quite quickly unless they're being bumped relentlessly. If they were all in one place, sellers would know to look there before, or in addition to, putting up a FS post.

Only downside I can think of is that it would be annoying if WTB posters didn't bother to mark their post 'Sorted' after buying/changing their mind.

Edit: in the absence of a reliable search function, you could make it more user-friendly/likely to result in matches between buyer and seller by deleting any 'sorted' posts, so that sellers only ever had to scroll through 'active' posts – but I'm loath to suggest anything that makes more work for the mods!

Roland · July 2023

barnstorm said: … you could make it more user-friendly/likely to result in matches between buyer and seller by deleting any 'sorted' posts …

We don’t like deleting Classified content, even when sold. It’s the content which ensures that theFretBoard is highly rated in google searches. It brings potential buyers and new members to the forum.

Members often refer to previous sales when buying and selling. Many view our asking prices as more reliable than those on ebay and Reverb.

barnstorm · July 2023

Roland said:

barnstorm said: … you could make it more user-friendly/likely to result in matches between buyer and seller by deleting any 'sorted' posts …

We don’t like deleting Classified content, even when sold. It’s the content which ensures that theFretBoard is highly rated in google searches. It brings potential buyers and new members to the forum.
Members often refer to previous sales when buying and selling. Many view our asking prices as more reliable than those on ebay and Reverb.

I get that - I didn’t mean FS posts, just ‘expired’ WTB posts in my hypothetical scenario. Those don’t generally contain the same useful price info.

But if I had something to sell I’d look through a WTB category even if the do-not-delete policy applied there, too, and there were quite a few ‘sorted’ posts to scroll past.

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New way of doing classifieds - subscribing for notifications on specific gear

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