Doll Classified Ads - Test Run!

[Admin]

Taking in the feedback that we've been receiving about keeping the Market a secure venue and trying to make feedback more useful overall, we've been looking around at what's available and we've decided that we'd like to try implementing a market-styled plugin for vBulletin that we've found and modified to suit our forum.

This plugin lets you post ads for your items by category, listing all the information just like your Market posts would. However each item is listed separately and buyers can browse by category or search for exactly the item they're looking for. In addition, SR Classifieds has a built-in feedback system so that you can rate the buyer or seller that you just did a deal with.

Before we just go launching it across the site, we wanted to do a sort of "pre-release" so that you can all take a look at it and give us your honest feedback. We want to know what you think! Is this a good idea? Do you think you'd prefer this over the current Market setup? Can we improve on it? If so, how? If you don't like it, what don't you like about it? What would you prefer to see? Basically, we want to hear your opinion as the users who would be utilizing this service if we implement it for real. :D

At the moment, we've entered a couple of "example" ads and feedback posts. You're welcome to go in and try adding example ads of your own, and testing out the feedback system as well, trying to leave feedback for each other. Please be aware that this is a trial run. All ads and feedback posted during this period will be deleted after it is over! Please do not post real sales or real feedback! (And please only post feedback about someone if you know they won't mind. ^^)

If the overall feedback that we receive is positive, then we'll be looking at implementing this sometime early next week. :) At that time, we will ask you to move your sale items over to the new system. Obviously, some things will have to remain in the old Market format, such as commissions and customizations. But we're hoping that much of the Market -- and the feedback -- can be ported over to this new system instead. :)

So please take a look at the new market plugin (http://www.abjds.com/forum/sr_classifieds.php). We're looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

P.S. Right now all of you can see the Classifieds while we get your feedback, but when we implement it for real, the usual 25 post count restriction as per the rules will apply!

[Christina]

I think this new market is very attractive and well organised. It would certainly be a nice feature in Resinality. I only have a few comments/questions:

- I tried to create a sales post, but it was never "submitted" although the button was clicked several times.

- I couldn't find any "reply" facility, so I suppose we could avoid the replies such as "PMed you"? I saw a "add message", but it seemed to be for the owner of the thread?

- Is there a limit to the number of photos which can be posted by thread?

- I couldn't find any "preview" option. I personally always like to preview a sales thread before posting it.

- I couldn't quite find out how to post a photograph. In DoA I have always used Photobucket, here it didn't seem to work (however, that is probably my fault, I'm not very skilled)

Good luck with this new market:)

Christina

[Karhys]

Hi Christina, and thank you for the feedback! :D

To answer your questions:

- I'm not sure why the ad wouldn't submit for you! :( Could you try again and let me know if it works? So far, I've been able to submit ads okay with both my account and our test account.

- there's no reply functionality within the system, so you simply have to PM the user directly. :) However our PM system is pretty robust so you can be pretty certain it will get through! Also, you can choose "Request a read receipt for this message" when sending your PM, so that you can find out when the person reads it. Then you'll know for sure they got it. :)

- at the moment there's absolutely no limit to the number of pictures that you include in an ad, so it shouldn't hinder anyone even if they want to post quite a few. :)

- for the preview option, I would really love to have this functionality as well! Unfortunately at the moment the plugin doesn't support it. However I'll look into it and see if I can add it as I think it would be very useful.

- there's two ways to post a photograph. You can add a photo the auction that will be uploaded to our server, which is the picture that will be listed next to the ad. This is done at the top, next to title, where it says "Upload Image:". You can pick any image directly from your computer and it will be uploaded.
For images within the advertisement itself, you'll need to use images hosted on the web, like at Photobucket as you mentioned. When you're writing the ad, the editor should have a small button for inserting images, just like at DoA, that looks like this: http://abjds.com/forum/images/editor/insertimage.gif Does that show up for you? You should be able to simply click it and insert an image. :)

Thanks again for the feedback and let us know if you have any more input or questions!

[Kokoryta]

Haven't tested anything, but perhaps there might be problems submitting ads due to which browser she uses?

[themadfish]

I have problem posting neutral feedback. I've tested it using Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Netscape and I can't get it to work. It just says, "Please go back and complete all required fields." Despite all fields being filled out. I can post negative feedback with no problem.

[themadfish]

Oh, and also since it is a negative feedback, I went on alot longer then a positive feedback would, so I think it reached the limit to how long the feedback could be. So it got cut off in mid sentence. Maybe make it so that people can't go over the limit or have no limit? Also, how would someone dispute a neg feedback? Can the seller post a followup like on ebay?

[Hitasura]

Oh, thanks for finding those for us! We'll see what we can do to get those issues fixed up!

[themadfish]

^^ Hehe, no problem. It was fun reading all the made-up ads. Oh, and positive feedback works fine for me as well.

"You have entered an invalid adid. Please go back and enter the valid adid." -hee, misspelling. (was checking if selecting trader works and it does. I tried entering 785 as the trade id)

I can also submit fine with Netscape 7.2. (I think I having too much fun testing the system)

[Christina]

Thank you, Cassiel, for the explanations. Just another question: how does one "bump up" sales threads in the new market (supposing that there will be more than one page per subject)?

[celestia]

i couldnt find the link to feedback .__. cos im blind.
But having said that.. we can just leave feedback without entering a transaction ?
(i should have tried i know ;_; but im a chicken.)

[Hitasura]

You can see a person's feedback by clicking on their name. And yes, you do have to enter a valid Ad number in order to leave feedback.

[Shizen]

Does this mean even expired ads can still be referred to when adding feedback?

[syrinx]

I really, really like this setup. I wish DoA would implement it. It would make life so much easier. I think it would do well here.

[nikita]

Thank you, Cassiel, for the explanations. Just another question: how does one "bump up" sales threads in the new market (supposing that there will be more than one page per subject)?

The way the system works, you can't bump ads. Ads will show according to how much time is left on them.

[Karhys]

I have problem posting neutral feedback. I've tested it using Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Netscape and I can't get it to work. It just says, "Please go back and complete all required fields." Despite all fields being filled out. I can post negative feedback with no problem.

Oh, and also since it is a negative feedback, I went on alot longer then a positive feedback would, so I think it reached the limit to how long the feedback could be. So it got cut off in mid sentence. Maybe make it so that people can't go over the limit or have no limit? Also, how would someone dispute a neg feedback? Can the seller post a followup like on ebay?

"You have entered an invalid adid. Please go back and enter the valid adid." -hee, misspelling. (was checking if selecting trader works and it does. I tried entering 785 as the trade id)

Thanks so much for all the bug testing, we really appreciate it. :D I've just been working with the system and I've fixed the neutral feedback problem, so you can leave neutral feedback now. I've also fixed the problem with going over the text limit on feedback. (The length is set within the plugin itself, so I just limited the text box so that one can't type more than the max length.) It's set to 250 chars. :) (And thanks for the spell check, fixed that too!)

For negative feedback, there's no followup functionality in the system - so I think that users will have to bring up issues with the mods personally if they have a problem. I'd love to just implement followups and stuff like that, but sadly it's a bit beyond my coding ability!

P.S the feedback you left me totally cracked me up. ;)

Does this mean even expired ads can still be referred to when adding feedback?

Ads can still be referenced until they're completely deleted by the system, which at the moment takes 4 months. Hopefully that's long enough to complete a transaction and leave feedback for it. :)

[Karhys]

Thank you everyone for your feedback! The Classifieds are now officially open for use! Please read the announcement (http://www.abjds.com/forum/showthread.php?t=874) regarding them. :D

[mendokusai]

i was wondering, on the site navigation on the left side of the portal, will there be a link to the classified ads?

a friend and i just had a long and confusing conversation, where i was trying to tell her how to get to them without realizing she was trying to navigate using those links :sweat

[nikita]

Cassiel is adding that link as we speak! Give her a few minutes and then refresh the Portal page!

[Karhys]

Sorry about that! :doh It's been on my to-do list all day but I've been working on fixing so many different things that it kept slipping my mind! Anyway, it's all fixed now. Thanks for the reminder! :D

[hobbywhelmed]

Hi! I just got access to the marketplace a couple of days ago. I might be missing it, but there doesn't seem to be a way to *mark* or watchlist an ad you're interested in, short of just printing out a copy when you view it or pm the seller.

Am I not looking carefully enough?

[V chan]

Haha, I just figure out that you have to click on the user profile in order to leave the feedback in the new system. Anyway, I wanted to know how to view sales that have ended or the items sold since I need the ad ID number in order to leave feedback.

[Karhys]

Haha, I just figure out that you have to click on the user profile in order to leave the feedback in the new system. Anyway, I wanted to know how to view sales that have ended or the items sold since I need the ad ID number in order to leave feedback.

Hey, sorry about this! It hadn't been immediately apparent to me that Closed ads were not visible, because Admins could see them by default. Whoops. :oops

Anyway, I've modified the Search functionality within the Classifieds, so that you can now search just for Closed ads, or for all available ads, or just for Open ads. I've also fixed the functionality to just search by Member name, or just search by Ad title/message.

So now you can, for example, just search for Closed ads by a specific member, and thusly find an item that you've bought (or sold) in order to get the ID number for feedback purposes. :D

I'm sorry that I didn't get this done sooner, but I've had a crazy busy week and this was the first chance I had to sit down and spend some quality time hacking away at the PHP.

Please let me know if you encounter any problems with the search function!