I visited the new classifieds and I died to death.
I visited the new classifieds and I died to death
I thought I was okay after looking and posting an advert on there. Turns out I was wrong though. I’ve contracted the bad cat aids and found several dead baby robins on the patio. I didn’t even have a patio before browsing on there.
The new classifieds are the worst and have literally ruined my life.
Over the years, I have used the old classifieds on here to buy and sell probably more than £10k's worth of bikes and gear - I found it a great place to buy and sell stuff - but just to add my voice to those of others (again), I will not be using the new system - it's rubbish compared to the old (I even paid for a sticky ad and still wan't happy with that)....like others have said, I imagine if you look at traffic on here it will have dipped significantly since the change - the old classifieds was one of the main reasons (alongside Bike Forum) that kept bringing people back
Clearly, the change is a mistake.....
So all will be forgiven when you reinstate the old Classifieds!
In the event that any of the developers are reading this thread can I suggest that a link to the new classifieds needs to be available/visible the way the old one was - at the top of each thread. That encourages "casual" visits which the separate menu doesn't
Any update from Stw when the new classified site will be fixed from ad blockers? I've got some stuff to list. I'd tell you what I have but I'm scared of the stealth, stealth ad police.
Actually, having looked at the classifieds on desktop today they seem to work quite well. A list that's quick to scroll down, pictures at sensible sizes and the boosted ads remain in the unobtrusively in the sidebar once you've scrolled past them . I can see the value of boosting and think it does represent an upgrade on the old system .
I stil liked the old "have a rummage jumble sale' of the old system, but now understand much better what the changes are achieving.
Maybe it's more of an issue that it doesn't really work on mobile cos the pictures are too big?
One thing I have noticed is how few wanted ads there are in the new forum area. I often browsed the wtd section as it was simple to see if someone was looking for that odd or end that may be lurking in my parts box rather than list everything in for sale
Only 10 wtd ads in a week. it was always a bit quieter than the other forum pages but 10 in a week! That's broken.
What would happen if those people didn’t drop their asking price?
depends if you ask an existentialist or psychic. If a price falls in the classifieds and no one is there to hear it?
who has suffered the wrath of the STW mod squad
How would you know? They are stealthy, ninja-like, moving in the shadows.
Just had a browse of the new classifieds to see what all the hot air was about ... Works ok for me. Half a page of priority ads then down to the other stuff. Easy to use. No horrid ads (as a logged in, STW subscriber), no pop ups. Using a Moto G6 android phone. Allowed me to send a message about some wheels, let me go back to the place in the listings where I'd left it. Quite an ok experience.
depends if you ask an existentialist or psychic. If a price falls in the classifieds and no one is there to hear it?
There's audio?
Works ok for me.
One of the many points is it doesn't actually display ads for quite a number of users.
Hopefully chips has taken his list to the team.and is typing his response right now.... As with previous management engagement posts it's what follows that is most important.
There’s audio?
If you are not hearing the voices, maybe try turning off your adblocker? Seems to be the solution to all problems.
Would these be the same evil adblockers that prevent me being directed to...
‘Link removed for obvious reasons'
...everytime I come on this site?
If so, no thanks
In the event that any of the developers are reading this thread can I suggest that a link to the new classifieds needs to be available/visible the way the old one was – at the top of each thread. That encourages “casual” visits which the separate menu doesn’t
Nah... leave it as it is, It's exactly this level of ineptitude that's always amused me about this place. I still can't believe anyone would actually pay for an ad on a site where the classifieds is hidden away like some dirty secret... well... I can... just not a bike parts classifieds.
That and all the coding pish that the forum ads to folks posts. Especially a really long OP.
You can say what you want about the prioritisation of work on this forum, but at least someone found the time to change the page background from white to black. 👍
Is it in mourning for the old classifieds? 🙂
That and all the coding pish that the forum ads to folks posts.
Sometimes misspelling works perfectly as in this case 🙂
Looks like there have been some tweaks. Pictures are now smaller in list view which makes it much, much easier to browse the whole list :D.
I don’t really understand the objections. I used to scroll down a list of often cryptic titles (such as “stuff” or “clearout”). I gave up opening those after a while as it was hardly ever “stuff” that I wanted. Now I scroll down a list of titles with pictures, which I f8nd much more useful.
Complaining that a site that relies on subscriptions or advertising revenue won’t make life easier for those that don’t subscribe and want to block adverts sounds a bit strange.
I was about to turn off my adblocker to have a look at the classifieds. Then I saw that it'd blocked 26 popups since coming on the site, so nope, not doing that.
I'll just have to sell on eBay from now on.
Oh, and to the poster above, I'm a subscriber, but still get pop-ups if I turn off my adblocker. So that works, eh?
I don’t really understand the objections. I used to scroll down a list of often cryptic titles (such as “stuff” or “clearout”). I gave up opening those after a while as it was hardly ever “stuff” that I wanted. Now I scroll down a list of titles with pictures, which I f8nd much more useful.
So an update on the way it lays out....
On full sized windows on chrome/windows all the ads are foced into a tiny side bar on the right under the paid for ads (again not meant to be shown to P users) formatting is tiny etc. but heh at least I can see something in there.
If I resize the window so the mobile style/more portrait mode engages it does manage to render them into the main body of the page but puts the entire list of categories at the top - something is very broken in there
To answer Ton's thread...
I no-longer look at the classifieds, just doesn't work for me. That's fine, eBay works instead, just means I make a few less impulse purchases which is good for my bank balance I guess.
Will I sell less? Well, see above. I'll still sell stuff, but it won't be here.
And all of this is fine, makes little or no odds to me, I'm sure Mark will lose no sleep whatsoever.
Just been on there and it all seemed ok to me - few too many boosted ads so I had to scroll a bit, no format issues, no weird artifacts or 'blimey there's adverts' (bar 'promoted products which aren't ads from an external server I guess so don;t count but are off on the right so don't catch my eye). Pics in the right places, click on an ad, see the details. I know I'm a sample of one but if this is how it's supposed to work I can't see what else people are expecting.
Full size screen, Firefox, Windows 10, STW whitelistsed on 'that which cant be talked about' but running ghostery.
To answer Ton
At this moment it has, its also stopped me impulse buying and looking to help others in the wanted adds. I think I only ever dealt with regular members for buying, selling and giving stuff away.
Just to add another voice... I'm no longer using the classifieds as its such a mess. Resorted to pinkbike/ebay for now which is a shame as I think the quality is generally much better here and the people are much nicer to deal with!
Oh, and to the poster above, I’m a subscriber, but still get pop-ups if I turn off my adblocker. So that works, eh?
Fair enough, I'd be pretty annoyed if I was still getting pop-ups after paying to subscribe. I don't, but I realise that's not much help 🙂
Is there no way to check the seller's forum and old classifieds history by clicking on their name? That was one of the big advantages of the old system. For example, I might want to know if 'VWMan' who is selling a Transporter at the top of the listings, has had any dealings with the site previously as a regular poster (even just on classifieds), or is just, as the name suggests, a van trader.
To answer Ton's thread:
Yes, I've given up on the new system and won't be wasting any more time on it. The combo of being reminded that you care about my privacy every 2 minutes, having to disable adblock and let my browser grind to a halt with pop-ups and overwhelming ads in order to see anything, and the forum randomly adding <p> and other such bullshit to posts means I'm spending less and less time on here, which is a shame as it used to be a great resource.
Adverts would be fine and I used to have my blocker disabled on here, but when it started making my browser crash and my phone notifications go crazy, it became impossible to use the site without the blocker enabled. The dismissal from the mods/owners of other people reporting similar problems doesn't give much faith that it'll ever get properly sorted.
You lot enjoying shouting into the void? 😉
@martinhutch - none whatsoever.
Whoever did the “upgrade” removed every single of the things that we all have used and that made this forum what it [s]is[/s] was......
You lot enjoying shouting into the void? 😉
I'm sure I saw Chipps manifesting himself into the thread a while back, so it's possible the spirits are receptive.
chipps
Keep the comments coming. I’m making notes…
Oh yeah! 😀
Is there no way to check the seller’s forum and old classifieds history by clicking on their name? That was one of the big advantages of the old system. For example, I might want to know if ‘VWMan’ who is selling a Transporter at the top of the listings, has had any dealings with the site previously as a regular poster (even just on classifieds), or is just, as the name suggests, a van trader.
I asked this question and got this reply, 'If you click a users name in the new classifieds you get a record of their ad history including ads that have expired from the main listing', but I've just tried it and you don't, you just get history from the new ones. If you click someones name in the bike forum you can see their history from the old classifieds. So a right ball ache!
‘Link removed for obvious reasons’
What is the 'obvious reason'?
Is it a dodgy site? If so, why does this site direct to it?
Or is it coz of some advert backhander?
Plus you can only have 3 ads now like being back at school hold site seems to be going to the dogs.
I no-longer look at the classifieds, just doesn’t work for me. That’s fine, eBay works instead, just means I make a few less impulse purchases which is good for my bank balance I guess.
Will I sell less? Well, see above. I’ll still sell stuff, but it won’t be here.
And all of this is fine, makes little or no odds to me, I’m sure Mark will lose no sleep whatsoever.
Same here - just eBay and PB for me now.
Bit of a shame but the classifieds were on the wane anyway along with the rest of the forum, so I'm not gonna get nasty about it or start questioning the STW team's professional competence.
I’ve also dropped my “p” and barely bother with the classifieds or the main site anymore.
Is it a dodgy site?
Well, yes. Including it as a link in the forum just increases the chance of someone using adblocker accidentally clicking it.
What is the ‘obvious reason’?
Is it a dodgy site? If so, why does this site direct to it?
Or is it coz of some advert backhander?
Posting a link to it will increase the chances of it appearing for some, plus someone will of course click on it. If it was backhander leaving it would be better.
A few replies:
like others have said, I imagine if you look at traffic on here it will have dipped significantly since the change
I have. It hasn't.
One of the many points is it doesn’t actually display ads for quite a number of users.
That's because:
Any update from Stw when the new classified site will be fixed from ad blockers?
Ad blockers interfere with the classifieds (because, y'know, they're adverts). As I said a couple of pages back, blocking adverts is in breach of the site T&Cs you all agreed to when signing up, and we can (and maybe should start) suspend your accounts for doing it.
Now, I have no idea whether this disruption is intentional behaviour or not, but I'd expect that making changes to the site so that people who are essentially wilfully stealing the service don't miss out on bits of it probably isn't very high up on the the developers' to-do lists.
If it were my website I'd have had an adblock detector running sitewide by now.
I was about to turn off my adblocker to have a look at the classifieds. Then I saw that it’d blocked 26 popups since coming on the site, so nope, not doing that.
...
Oh, and to the poster above, I’m a subscriber, but still get pop-ups if I turn off my adblocker. So that works, eh?
There is no way, no how that STW should be generating any pop-ups at all (aside maybe from GDPR / cookie consent forms I guess). Not even for signed-out users, let alone subscribers. As a subscriber you shouldn't see any third-party advertising at all.
I'd guess that either the "pop-ups" are actually the classified adverts - which is how it appeared to me in testing, it shows blocked elements generally rather than pop-ups explicitly - or you've got a malware infection which is nothing to do with the site. I suppose either that or it could be erroneously blocking the GDPR request and so the site is retrying?
Plus you can only have 3 ads now like being back at school hold site seems to be going to the dogs.
I really don't understand why people keep raising this up as an issue. You could only have two adverts on the front page of the old classifieds, you can actually have more now than before. Did no-one ever read the old rules?
Ad blockers interfere with the classifieds (because, y’know, they’re adverts).
That's isn't how adblockers work, as I suspect you know
If it were, I would not be able to see the boosted ads. (which are ads) which I can, but I would be able to see the items people have posted for sale (which are posts) which I cannot.
Nor do I see the actual ads even with the adblocker turned off on the device on which I am able to do so.
It all comes down to how the site is coded.
And I get pop up warnings from every combination of browsers I've tried. For some reason this site is suffering from some fairly serious issues presumably related to coding/construction.
Ad blockers interfere with the classifieds (because, y’know, they’re adverts). As I said a couple of pages back, blocking adverts is in breach of the site T&Cs you all agreed to when signing up, and we can (and maybe should start) suspend your accounts for doing it.
At the moment it could be down to how the site is handling the width of the window as it is different when you get to the portrait mode. As said above..... all the ads are crammed into the side bar below the "Promoted shite" or adverts to the rest of us. that is simply bad formatting so that probably needs looking at.
If it were my website I’d have had an adblock detector running sitewide by now.
Seems sensible but as I pay for STW to remove the ads I shouldn't be blocking anything at all here. So no need to enforce that for P users is there.
we can (and maybe should start) suspend your accounts for doing it.Now, I have no idea whether this disruption is intentional behaviour or not, but I’d expect that making changes to the site so that people who are essentially wilfully stealing the service don’t miss out on bits of it probably isn’t very high up on the the developers’ to-do lists.
Well done Cougar, how to go about alienating the user base in one fell swoop.
Clearly those of us that cannot be immediately monetised are of no interest to the powers that be, despite the fact that the forum users have contributed to the current status that this site enjoys.
really don’t understand why people keep raising this up as an issue. You could only have two adverts on the front page of the old classifieds, you can actually have more now than before. Did no-one ever read the old rules?
Because the new classifieds is shocking for clear out listing, where you list multiple items. Like it or not the old classifieds was much, much better for this. If It’s really not an issue lift it to 10 ads per person! Quite the noise down that way.
