Forum Feedback Disallow/Merge multiple sale threads by the same user within a short span of time

[enthusiast29]

Hi,

This is just something I noticed and is kind of annoying but maybe I'm not alone and if others feel this way too they're welcome to add on to this.

The above is an example of a user who makes/starts multiple sale threads in FS section and then proceeds to bump them every single day at the same time and takes up the entirety of the first page which is not fair to other users if they had already bumped their thread and it gets taken back to the 2nd page within a few minutes due to this.

No pointing fingers here to particular individuals but I think this kind of behavior shouldn't be allowed especially when editing the post and title is allowed for a good while when you create a thread. They could just add new items and change the thread title in the time span. Clearly this individual could have done it in the first sale thread they created but they decided to create new threads again and again for every item they had, some on the very same day within minutes of creating one post while others a couple days apart (still being in the editable period of the initial thread).

What do you guys think? Is this fair to others? Shouldn't starting a new FS thread be discouraged if you already created one very recently and it's still editable?

 

[goDofWar_skr]

IMO having multiple threads instead of a single thread with all items is cleaner..
For example, there is a keyboard, psu, mobile, headphone, etc. in your quoted example.
So by going the multiple thread route, it allows you to list the items to correct categories instead of just one "misc" category. This is definitely going to help the prospective buyers to search for it in a better way.

 

[powervgx]

The mods should make some rules such as only 3-5 sale threads are allowed at a time. Once those items are sold or withdrawn from sale, other sale threads could be made. Letting users add multiple threads will always be unfair to others who have just 1-2 items for sale. Another thing which could be done is to increase the bump duration from 24 hours to 48 hours.

 

[enthusiast29]

@goDofWar_skr though it's "cleaner" for the seller but it's a clutter for other sellers. What if you have just 1 thread and it gets buried into this wall of threads by a single seller? You and that seller both are using this "service" offered by the forum for free yet the other seller is treating it like private section without paying anything.

Besides there are examples of very good formatting of sale thread for multiple items we've seen here.
Look here: https://techenclave.com/threads/ton...items-suitably-discounted-have-a-look.205769/
and here: https://techenclave.com/threads/diy-hardware-sensors-connectors-components-arduino-pico-etc.205861/

So making multiple threads in the name of "cleanliness" is just another way of saying that the person seems lazy to organize his post in a cumulative way and doesn't wanna put in the effort.

 

[ibose]

I see that limiting the number of active sale threads is the only option which can help with this.
Sale of related items can be clubbed together but having unrelated items tagged in separate sale threads is helpful to genuine buyers as well. For someone looking for a PSU, it will be easier to group them by the tags instead of searching a long thread of multiple items.

 

[devagya]

I would just keep one single thread(i currently have only 2) if threads were editable, and just remove the sold items, also edit history should be public so people can see the removed/changed items/prices.

 

[solo_wing]

I think very simple solution would be to have a limit of bump -3 sale thread in next 24 hrs. Then 6hr later you can bump another 3 and so on.

Having multiple sale thread is much cleaner in my opinion.

Allowing editing of sale thread for longer duration would be nice but people can take advantage also .

 

[kiran6680]

Besides there are examples of very good formatting of sale thread for multiple items we've seen here.

Yes, the seller has done a formidable job of organising their information in those threads. But still, finding if a particular item is claimed or sold is quite difficult for a potential buyer, one needs to search every single post in 3 pages. Whereas for a dedicated single item thread, the last post will be enough to understand what is going on in 95% of cases.

I do see the advantages of combining items in a single thread too, just demonstrating what the "clutter" is doing in practical ways.

 

[Slayer88]

Mixed feelings here. I agree with OP that it's not fair to others as bumping wipes other threads out of visibility. But at the same time it's cleaner/better for the seller and potential buyers as people often do not read the whole title or the title character limit cannot accommodate all the items being sold. Out attention is too short and we only read the first part of the FS thread name and the item we may be looking for is in the latter part. Also, sometimes I may filter by category, this I feel is the biggest loss if you have multiple items in a thread, you may not see the items as they have gone into another category. Limiting the bumps per Hour is a good solution. 1 bump per hour/2 hours sounds good.

 

[dexterz]

I'd prefer to have individual sale threads as having multiple items in a single thread requires me to read through multiple pages to know if an item is still available or not. Also allows for better tagging/filtering. Maybe limit number of parallel active threads or number of bumps. I hate having to search for status posts from seller in a multiple sale thread stating X is sold, Y,Z is on hold, A,B and C is available

 

[gourav]

There's a lot which can be done in the classifieds section here. However, I don't know how much bandwidth the admins have to implement, test, and deploy those changes. As far as I know, the forum is run by volunteers and is not a profitable entity.

Here are a few suggestions which I have:

1. Delete sale threads (or move to closed section) after a specific period of time, maybe 6 months. After this much time has elapsed from listing, either the product has been sold and not marked so by the OP, or the product is not going to get sold. OP can always create a new thread if they're still interested in selling.
2. Allow the OP to mark sale threads as closed themselves, either after sale or on withdrawal of sale. This will move a lot of threads out of the section, cleaning it up instantly.
3. Keep the first post of the sale thread indefinitely editable, so that threads with multiple items can show current prices/stocks.
4. The next step can be done only after the above. Allow only a certain number of active sale threads by a member, say 5. If they have more, they either go to the reseller section or wait for previous threads to get closed to sell the next item. But this cannot be implemented if sellers don't have the option of closing threads on their own.

And I agree with others here, combining multiple items into a single post is not helpful. It makes it harder to locate products, even when they're listed.

 

[Slayer88]

There's a lot which can be done in the classifieds section here. However, I don't know how much bandwidth the admins have to implement, test, and deploy those changes. As far as I know, the forum is run by volunteers and is not a profitable entity.

Here are a few suggestions which I have:

1. Delete sale threads (or move to closed section) after a specific period of time, maybe 6 months. After this much time has elapsed from listing, either the product has been sold and not marked so by the OP, or the product is not going to get sold. OP can always create a new thread if they're still interested in selling.
2. Allow the OP to mark sale threads as closed themselves, either after sale or on withdrawal of sale. This will move a lot of threads out of the section, cleaning it up instantly.
3. Keep the first post of the sale thread indefinitely editable, so that threads with multiple items can show current prices/stocks.
4. The next step can be done only after the above. Allow only a certain number of active sale threads by a member, say 5. If they have more, they either go to the reseller section or wait for previous threads to get closed to sell the next item. But this cannot be implemented if sellers don't have the option of closing threads on their own.

And I agree with others here, combining multiple items into a single post is not helpful. It makes it harder to locate products, even when they're listed.

Totally agree with #2. This is very much needed.
For #3 I feel certain fields must be left editable indefinitely, not all, as this can open up possibilities of malpractices.

 

[montsa007]

There's a lot which can be done in the classifieds section here. However, I don't know how much bandwidth the admins have to implement, test, and deploy those changes. As far as I know, the forum is run by volunteers and is not a profitable entity.

Here are a few suggestions which I have:

1. Delete sale threads (or move to closed section) after a specific period of time, maybe 6 months. After this much time has elapsed from listing, either the product has been sold and not marked so by the OP, or the product is not going to get sold. OP can always create a new thread if they're still interested in selling.
2. Allow the OP to mark sale threads as closed themselves, either after sale or on withdrawal of sale. This will move a lot of threads out of the section, cleaning it up instantly.
3. Keep the first post of the sale thread indefinitely editable, so that threads with multiple items can show current prices/stocks.
4. The next step can be done only after the above. Allow only a certain number of active sale threads by a member, say 5. If they have more, they either go to the reseller section or wait for previous threads to get closed to sell the next item. But this cannot be implemented if sellers don't have the option of closing threads on their own.

And I agree with others here, combining multiple items into a single post is not helpful. It makes it harder to locate products, even when they're listed.

I agree with the fact that there is a problem, checking classifieds section all I could see is single user occupying most of the page 1 (Only 75% available due to stickies) with plethora of threads (sometimes they were opened within a few minutes apart), its unfair to others.
I agree with Point No. 2 : Will save moderators pain of closing the thread
Not really with Point No. 3 : Seller may modify the original terms of sale, for instance I could list something as "Working perfectly" but once I get the money I can change it to "Dead", it'd mean buyer has to take a screenshot of every deal, I understand there's a timestamp tool showing last edited, but there's no way to see what was edited, seller could say I marked the item as sold to the buyer but who knows?, I'm not saying all sellers are shady, but due to 1 bad experience we had some new rules here. If we can find a solution to this issue, could work out.
Totally agree with point no. 4 : A user can have at any point of time "X" no. of threads open, may bring some cleanliness in the marketplace. One may argue that he or she has to sell something urgently, for the same reason we can keep a consolidated thread of garage sales so that you have a few spare slots in your quota of threads you can open in Classified Section.

Another wild idea (since this is feedback & pouring ideas) - One can purchase a thread in classifieds for "X" Rs. if he has his or her quota exhausted but wants to get rid of something, I know its wild & haywire but a suggestion since we already have "Patron" & "Reseller" tags.

Hope mods team consider this.

 

[nRiTeCh]

I have a slightly different opinion here..
Have seen many such sale threads having multiple items coupled into a single thread. But here what happens is say out of 10 only 8 items gets sold off and for the last 2 items the sellers keeps bumping for months to the tune the bump pages get increased considerably and end-users/buyers looking for lose interest in such sells thinking nobody is buying it since a long time means the product itself is unworthy!

One can search such threads where 8 pages have been only bumped and still the product never got sold off and when contacted such seller he has already disposed off such product off the forum but obviously never bothered to intimate in his thread.

With individual threads, one can keep every thread fresh and clean but at the same time use some common sense to combine products of similar category into one like mobo/cpu/ram can be combined in one thread as most likely someone looking for a combo can grab this and all 3 items might get sold off in one bang!

So a logical planning here can reduce the no of sale threads per user.

Also, a capping of sale thread per user per day or week can help if its really required.

 

[montsa007]

I have a slightly different opinion here..
Have seen many such sale threads having multiple items coupled into a single thread. But here what happens is say out of 10 only 8 items gets sold off and for the last 2 items the sellers keeps bumping for months to the tune the bump pages get increased considerably and end-users/buyers looking for lose interest in such sells thinking nobody is buying it since a long time means the product itself is unworthy!

One can search such threads where 8 pages have been only bumped and still the product never got sold off and when contacted such seller he has already disposed off such product off the forum but obviously never bothered to intimate in his thread.

With individual threads, one can keep every thread fresh and clean but at the same time use some common sense to combine products of similar category into one like mobo/cpu/ram can be combined in one thread as most likely someone looking for a combo can grab this and all 3 items might get sold off in one bang!

So a logical planning here can reduce the no of sale threads per user.

Also, a capping of sale thread per user per day or week can help if its really required.

Why not close the old thread wherein the items which are pending to be sold, and open a new garage sale type thread with fresh + old items?

 

[nRiTeCh]

Why not close the old thread wherein the items which are pending to be sold, and open a new garage sale type thread with fresh + old items?

Thats not allowed afaik.. relisting old items in a new thread.

 

[kartikoli]

Thats not allowed afaik.. relisting old items in a new thread.

Thats allowed as long as you close old threads, I've done that several times. (Listed 4~5 items and 1 of them remain unsold for a long time then normally I'll close the thread and relist in a new thread with updated details but this is done mostly when I have more items to sell)

 

[montsa007]

Thats not allowed afaik.. relisting old items in a new thread.

I've done it for my vinyl thread, since original thread 1st post i wanted to edit but mods said editing 1st post is not permitted, so opened a V2 thread. I don't see anything wrong in it if the original thread has been closed & one has a genuine reason to move it to another thread.
For Instance imagine if I have 20-30 items to sell, now imagine if I were to open 20-30 different threads within a span of every few minutes, bump each thread every day, I'm sure I'd attract a lot of unwanted attention in the classified section as I'd be occupying all of the 1st page & some of the second page, and when its time to bump them I can do it once every 24 hours too, so again my army of threads will be all over the place. Mods may not take an action because there's currently no rule stating how many threads one can open.

Thats allowed as long as you close old threads, I've done that several times. (Listed 4~5 items and 1 of them remain unsold for a long time then normally I'll close the thread and relist in a new thread with updated details but this is done mostly when I have more items to sell)

Another live example.

 

[kartikoli]

For Instance imagine if I have 20-30 items to sell, now imagine if I were to open 20-30 different threads within a span of every few minutes, bump each thread every day, I'm sure I'd attract a lot of unwanted attention in the classified section as I'd be occupying all of the 1st page & some of the second page, and when its time to bump them I can do it once every 24 hours too, so again my army of threads will be all over the place. Mods may not take an action because there's currently no rule stating how many threads one can open.

mods have taken action previously, If I am not wrong there is a soft limit of 5~6 active threads in marketplace (Can anyone confirm) which is fine. I've once reported a user with exactly what you described above and now he is a reseller (perfectly fine).

 

[montsa007]

mods have taken action previously, If I am not wrong there is a soft limit of 5~6 active threads in marketplace (Can anyone confirm) which is fine. I've once reported a user with exactly what you described above and now he is a reseller (perfectly fine).

Not pointing any fingers but there are people who have 4-5+ threads open currently, though threads may be opened at diff times but due to bumps they now come up one after another & occupy the classifieds section, why not close them all and make a mega thread instead? as the thread has 2-3-4-5 page of bump posts
The agenda here is, its not a fair game for others when a handful users decide to take over the classifieds section.