Formosafied's kinda suck

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1

Every time I have tried to post anything there is has been either difficult to impossible to log in. Thus i have never actually posted an ad, I have tried a number of times but have eventually just got annoyed and went ‘elsewhere’. No one seems to post much in the way of ad’s in the formosafied area (I assume due to the same problems I have encountered), so no one reads anything there bc , well there isn’t usually much to read. It seems to be a bit of a vicious circle of suckiness…

Anyone else find this problem as well? Are there any plans to make it better?
cheers

2

I totally agree. I have been using Forumosa when it was called Oriented, then Segue and the forums were fine. I have sold a lot of things on Classifieds of this website over the years. So much so that I donated US$50 last year. Now I think those same classifieds get much less traffic have less listings and are difficult to use and an overall pain in the arse. Forumosifieds is a failure. Stop messing around with a good thing. We have a saying in the USA, if ain’t broke don’t fix it. The Forumosa webmaster has too much time on his hands.

3

AH ha I knew I wasn’t the only one! So what do you all think the odds of anyone one doing anything productive about are?

4

I think the webmaster is too deeply into his Forumosifieds. I think there is a bad trend in websites to separate parts of their sites into other sites. In this situation the webmaster didn’t realize that the success of the classfied section is based upon ease of posting and even more so by ease of reading. I for one only use to look at the Classfieds because the titles of the classified sections were listed here on the Index with the other Forums forumosa.com/taiwan/ After they were moved, I never browse them anymore. The hurts the effectiveness of the posts and the whole purpose of people posting. Likewise, it is not as easy to list things.

Yes yes yes, more organized, but lets say it is overorganized.

Getting it changed, well this is a non-profit member site so perhaps there is a chance.

5

I tried to use them once, then tried again and had the same problems. I’m going to stick to advertising things in my signature. That has ALWAYS gotten me results.

6

Thats what I did too. Too many problems using forumosafied, and not enough traffic. Advertise in your sig.!

7

I got my Sugar via forumosafieds.

Worked well for me.

8

[quote=“sandman”]Maoman, I know you’re desperate to make Forumosafieds work, but surely not at the expense of finding homes for rescued animals?

And what about when you start charging for ads? You’re going to CHARGE a charity organization seeking to home rescued animals? Surely not!

Please consider allowing the adoption posts to stay in the discussion forums.[/quote]

I think you got it right. Maoman is really trying to make the Forumosifieds work. Perhaps he can bring forumosifieds back into the Forums fold, he can still charge if he wants. Right? At least then the ads might be more effective and worth paying for.

9

Or use Sandman’s

:slight_smile:

10

Or use Sandman’s

:slight_smile:[/quote]
Heh! :laughing:

11

It’s not just the difficulties in posting the ads, which is high enough that as I mention before I just gave up and posted ‘elsewhere’ a.k.a. Tealit.com (gasp boo hiss). But at least they make placing an ad simple and they have a lot of traffic looking at the ads. I can’t even be bothered to look at the forumosafied because, like so many others, people just give up and go elsewhere. So the pickin’s are kinda slim. At least when the ads where in the forums the titles got viewed in the ‘new’ section, and if you where interested you clickie clickied, and if not… you didn’t. So people who didn’t even really know they where looking for something (maybe they weren’t even but found something interesting to them anyway) saw things the definitely wouldn’t have otherwise.

For example the guy that was looking for a Spanish teacher, or I would like a Portuguese teacher. What are the odds of a Spanish / Portuguese speaker/teacher, randomly cruising the forumosafied when i can;t even be bothered? (And yes I did go look, was rather sparse and useless in my opinion). Or, as someone else mentioned, pet adoption; I’m not looking for a pet, I wouldn’t even consider looking in the ads, but I would at least notice and consider it in the forums. Traffic is what makes successful ad’s, and forumosafied has almost none… tealit sucks and you’re better off going there. :frowning:.

I will say, the forumosafieds have been put together nicely and are very organized, (It’s not all bad) but there are a lot of problems. Maybe there could be a rule, such as you can post a blurb about you classified ad in the temp forum with a link to your ad, that would get you the ‘traffic’ with out clogging up the forums. Just a suggestion. I know I would notice a lot more ads that way :slight_smile:

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[quote=“delieadalish”]Maybe there could be a rule, such as you can post a blurb about you classified ad in the temp forum with a link to your ad, that would get you the ‘traffic’ with out clogging up the forums. Just a suggestion. I know I would notice a lot more ads that way :slight_smile:[/quote]This is a very good idea. So good that I came up with it myself a few weeks ago! (Actually kellohitty did, and I supported it).

[quote=“joesax”][quote=“kellohitty”]By the way, I’m not sure if I’m allowed to post this here or not, I’m selling my SHOEI RF-900 - duhamel helmet (Silver and blue). I did also post the details on forumosafieds. If I’m not allowed to post that, please delete it.[/quote]That’s OK. I noticed the Joe Rocket mesh jacket that you’re selling over there too. Useful piece of kit. I’m sure it will come in very handy to someone.

I think that Goose Egg and Maoman are working on a feature of the Forumosafieds that will mean that new ads over there will show up on Forumosa as well, or something. That will be very helpful. But at least until that happens I won’t object to people posting here to alert members to ads over there.[/quote]
As you say, however, temp is probably the best place for people to post these kinds of ad alerts.

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[quote=“joesax”][quote=“delieadalish”]Maybe there could be a rule, such as you can post a blurb about you classified ad in the temp forum with a link to your ad, that would get you the ‘traffic’ with out clogging up the forums. Just a suggestion. I know I would notice a lot more ads that way :slight_smile:[/quote]This is a very good idea. So good that I came up with it myself a few weeks ago! (Actually kellohitty did, and I supported it).

[quote=“joesax”][quote=“kellohitty”]By the way, I’m not sure if I’m allowed to post this here or not, I’m selling my SHOEI RF-900 - duhamel helmet (Silver and blue). I did also post the details on forumosafieds. If I’m not allowed to post that, please delete it.[/quote]That’s OK. I noticed the Joe Rocket mesh jacket that you’re selling over there too. Useful piece of kit. I’m sure it will come in very handy to someone.

I think that Goose Egg and Maoman are working on a feature of the Forumosafieds that will mean that new ads over there will show up on Forumosa as well, or something. That will be very helpful. But at least until that happens I won’t object to people posting here to alert members to ads over there.[/quote]
As you say, however, temp is probably the best place for people to post these kinds of ad alerts.[/quote]
:doh: The things I miss when I’m sleeping (really and mentally), oh well even if someone else thought of it first… I support your idea then :slight_smile:.

14

Actually, it has been the other way around - I haven’t had enough time on my hands to fix it.

I think the odds are pretty good. Your motivational style leaves a lot to be desired :wink:

15

Grafting something like Forumosafieds onto an existing phpbb forum is not at all an easy task. The code bases are completely different and were not engineered to scale up or to work together. Big, big job.

The interesting thing is how the community is coming up with cool ways to work around these problems in the meantime–ads in signatures and linking in posts.

16

[quote=“delieadalish”]It’s not just the difficulties in posting the ads, which is high enough that as I mention before I just gave up and posted ‘elsewhere’ a.k.a. Tealit.com (gasp boo hiss). But at least they make placing an ad simple and they have a lot of traffic looking at the ads. I can’t even be bothered to look at the forumosafied because, like so many others, people just give up and go elsewhere. So the pickin’s are kinda slim. At least when the ads where in the forums the titles got viewed in the ‘new’ section, and if you where interested you clickie clickied, and if not… you didn’t. So people who didn’t even really know they where looking for something (maybe they weren’t even but found something interesting to them anyway) saw things the definitely wouldn’t have otherwise. [/quote]I think this is great explanation of the current problems with the Classified section.

17

Sorry to say, but I have to agree. The current Forumosafieds are a disappointment. (noah classifieds?) I have a bunch of clutter I wanted to post, but I have been turned off by the layout. Example, If i have some household stuff and electronic household stuff there is confusion as to which category is best.

The demo on this php classified ad web app looks pretty good (its free/opensource ~ not fancy, simple and clean):

geodesicsolutions.com/produc … s_lite.htm

a few more listed here:
directory.google.com/Top/Compute … ified_Ads/

P.S. Your efforts are always appreciated!

18

Thanks, 4nr

We tried out Noah Classifieds but have switched to phpClassifieds because integration with the forums is a top priority. “Integration” means 2 things - (1) using the same membership database as the forums so that you do not have to create a separate login ID for the forums, and (2) for the classified ads to be accessible on the forums - in certain forums as well as in the latest posts pages (not implemented yet)

Please keep the feedback coming :slight_smile: :notworthy:

19

Posted my first ad there a few days ago. Ran into the same problem that everyone else reports, and HAD TO SEARCH THE FORUMS TO FIND THE SOLUTION!!

Why isn’t there a note when you first register to tell you what you have to do?

Otherwise it was a fast and painless affair, and the ad has apparently been seen by quite a few people already.

The ads have yet to acquire the critical mass of users that makes them truly useful, but that won’t happen if people just run away back to tealit at the first hint of trouble. Those fuckers disappear ALL my ads without explanation or discussion within 15 minutes of me posting them, even if I create new user names. I don’t know how they know it’s me, but they’re a lot less easy to deal with than F.com.

I don’t want ‘Jack’ - or whatever his real name is - to continue enjoying his pre-eminent position amongst advertisers in Taiwan. Go look at how much he charges for teaching ads, and multiply that figure by how many ads are posted every month. Then ask yourself what he does for the foreign community.

Compare that to poor old Golden Egg here at forumosa. He may be making a bit of cash over and above his operating costs these days, but he’s supported this site out of his own pocket for many years and he still doesn’t make enough money to justify the time he has to put into this site to make it work as well as it does. If he can find a way to make enough money to pay for proper tech support, and if there’s something left to finance his own lavish lifestyle afterwards, then more power to him. I think he deserves more support.

He gets support from people who believe enough in this site to volunteer their own time and energy, and from those who contribute money towards operating costs. But all he really needs is for people to use the advertising enough that he can start charging for the bit that can make money.

Oh, and he needs to somehow make it clearer to everyone using the ads that the only bit you (will) have to pay for is the teaching ads, and that all you have to do in the meantime is hit the refresh button.

Simple technical glitch.
Simple communication problem.

One of the above is easily solvable. The other takes a little more time and I expect Gus would appreciate being left to get on with it while you grouches do your bit by posting your ads.

Disclaimer: Yes, I know it’s bloody annoying when you can’t post your ad. I would bitch too. The workaround needs to be more clearly publicized, but if it is then the inconvenience goes away.

20

Cheers tmwc, and thanks for the kind words :slight_smile:

There still seems to be some confusion about whether the classified ads website will be free of charge or not. Our plan is and has always been to keep them free unless you are going to post an advert looking for a teacher in Taiwan*.

Maybe it will help if we rename the website (yet again) - we (the admins) are discussing the possibilities. If we do rename the classifieds website, we may also change the external design of it - so your feedback on it’s “usability” and “navigability” is crucial. Please tell us what you’d like us to do.

As I mentioned earlier this afternoon, it is unlikely that we will change the internal (underlying) software that we have chosen. This is because we have the all-important “integration” aspect worked out (well, almost :blush: ) and I’ll be damned if we have to start looking around for another platform that integrates with these forums

Actually, now that we have Malc on board as Forumosa Admin, I am a lot more optimistic about how our technical development will fare :slight_smile:

The names we are currently tossing around are:

  1. freeclassifieds.com.tw
  2. FREEads.com.tw
  3. adverts.com.tw

Please suggest others we should register. For now, we are using “Loot” and “the Forumosafieds”. If we do choose to rename the website, both Loot and Forumosafieds will continue to redirect to the new system