Ad policy

356 Porsche-related discussions and questions.
Message
Author
User avatar
Joris Koning
356 Fan
Posts: 2505
Joined: Thu Mar 27, 2008 12:38 pm
Location: Netherlands

Ad policy

#1 Post by Joris Koning »

I would like to run something by the general membership. Our ad section is a wonderful tool and valuable to the membership. It allows you to post wanted and for sale ads. This way parts can be offered to the membership first etc.

Increasingly I see a small group of individuals list large numbers of parts. Diving into their membership records it is clear they are not "active" members and hardly post at all and when they do its to seek information on items they will later post for sale.

While there is a lot of value to the membership of these parts being posted I feel that these "members" are attracting more than their fair share, some might call if free loading. Have we ever considered offering "professional" memberships? These would come with higher annual fees but could also offer the "member" additional services possible.

I do not want to take away from those members who have a 356 related business, post here helping members out and support the general club. I am referring to those people who only seem to be a member of our club so that they are able to market their goods to a specific audience and do not add anything to the club but some sort of parts availability
'56 Coupe
'57 Coupe
'59 Cab 
'60 Coupe

User avatar
Adam Wright
Classifieds Monitor
Posts: 10304
Joined: Wed Mar 12, 2008 1:00 am
Tag: KTF

Re: Ad policy

#2 Post by Adam Wright »

I think I know who you are talking about, and if it is the same person, the 912 board banned him for the same thing. I'm not in favor of banning people, even if they are in excess of what is considered normal. It's unfortunate when someone's only contribution and participation is to push parts on the community, but they are still providing parts for the community, and pushing those people away hurts us all.
Maybe if someone has a problem with a seller like this, contact them first, as one Porsche guy to another, and see what their take is. Censoring people is rarely the answer.
www.unobtanium-inc.com
Check out my Barn Find column in the Registry magazine, always looking for good stories.

User avatar
Jacques Lefriant
356 Fan
Posts: 4597
Joined: Mon Dec 06, 2010 1:50 pm
Location: Washoe county NV

Re: Ad policy

#3 Post by Jacques Lefriant »

Hi Joris
face it this is no longer an altruistic collection of people that are true enthusiasts/amateurs. Don't take this as a negative and i like both you and Adam but i feel that you both have gone over to the dark side with some of your dealings.
j
 

User avatar
Neil Bardsley
356 Fan
Posts: 1099
Joined: Tue Mar 20, 2012 10:21 am
Location: London

Re: Ad policy

#4 Post by Neil Bardsley »

I think the more ads in the classified section the better. The forum is pretty good at ignoring members that only post to value their items. That said on DDK there is a charge for trade ads. That said we have some semi profession type of members, of the type you talk about, which continue to post lots of non trade ads.

PS I not sure if Jacques is joking or not. Clearly I don't know him well enough :)

User avatar
Bob Forman
356 Fan
Posts: 1459
Joined: Tue May 06, 2008 1:26 pm
Location: Anacortes, WA

Re: Ad policy

#5 Post by Bob Forman »

Friends in the Porsche-, camera-, and boat-worlds seem to be grousing more and more about the spiraling costs of selling on eBay. The alternative is to advertise on enthusiast sites such as ours (or CL). If this turns out to be the case, our classifieds section has a great future. As suggested above, a slight cost for an insertion could be a future source of revenue, Charging a small amount to advertise may serve to offset an increase in club dues, defray future expenses, as well as dampen the usurpation of our free ad service.
Bob Forman

User avatar
Gary Koehler
356 Fan
Posts: 374
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2008 2:22 pm

Re: Ad policy

#6 Post by Gary Koehler »

How difficult would it be to include a 'counter' with an individual's ad or general posting? A metric to show the breakdown of classified ads placed vs. general information posts. We could then recognize these posters, while still keeping all the classified ads that some of us might need. I'd welcome it, some might not.
More annoying to me are those individuals who seem to get their listings at the top of the queue quite regularly.
Last edited by Gary Koehler on Mon Jun 19, 2017 5:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Adam Wright
Classifieds Monitor
Posts: 10304
Joined: Wed Mar 12, 2008 1:00 am
Tag: KTF

Re: Ad policy

#7 Post by Adam Wright »

Jacques Lefriant wrote:Hi Joris
face it this is no longer an altruistic collection of people that are true enthusiasts/amateurs. Don't take this as a negative and i like both you and Adam but i feel that you both have gone over to the dark side with some of your dealings.
j
Yeah, no way to take that as a negative...
www.unobtanium-inc.com
Check out my Barn Find column in the Registry magazine, always looking for good stories.

User avatar
Joris Koning
356 Fan
Posts: 2505
Joined: Thu Mar 27, 2008 12:38 pm
Location: Netherlands

Re: Ad policy

#8 Post by Joris Koning »

J, I enjoy spending time on the dark side with you the emperor.

All kidding aside, I think the discussion is a valid one. As a club we need to look at alternative ways of funding as our membership base in shrinking. Gone are the days when the magazine was the center piece of the club. I agree that the ads of these professional sellers provide a service. At the same time it feels weird that we have people pay for magazine space to advertise while online both professional and supposedly private individuals who achieve professional volumes can do this for just their annual membership dues. It would be nice if we could think of a structure which is a win win for both sides.

The fact that there are many shades of grey makes this a difficult discussion but one I think it is one we should have as a club.
'56 Coupe
'57 Coupe
'59 Cab 
'60 Coupe

User avatar
David Jones
Classifieds Moderator
Posts: 7323
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2008 6:32 pm
Tag: I wish I knew as much as I think I know.
Location: Kentucky

Re: Ad policy

#9 Post by David Jones »

I would hate to see the classifieds become like the Samba where one vendor could regularly have two pages of ads and all highly priced. I have always liked our classifieds the way they were but perhaps if the ads were limited to only 356 parts it would make it more manageable. If I had a 911 I would be happy to go to a 911 focussed website for my parts the way I do for my Boxster.
If I had known I would live this long I would have pushed the envelope a little harder.
Cymru am byth
David Jones #9715

User avatar
Adam Wright
Classifieds Monitor
Posts: 10304
Joined: Wed Mar 12, 2008 1:00 am
Tag: KTF

Re: Ad policy

#10 Post by Adam Wright »

David Jones wrote:I would hate to see the classifieds become like the Samba where one vendor could regularly have two pages of ads and all highly priced. I have always liked our classifieds the way they were but perhaps if the ads were limited to only 356 parts it would make it more manageable. If I had a 911 I would be happy to go to a 911 focussed website for my parts the way I do for my Boxster.
The trick to doing the samba is to go into your preferences and block ads from what I call the "spam" sellers. It's amazing how much more manageable it becomes then.
www.unobtanium-inc.com
Check out my Barn Find column in the Registry magazine, always looking for good stories.

User avatar
David Jones
Classifieds Moderator
Posts: 7323
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2008 6:32 pm
Tag: I wish I knew as much as I think I know.
Location: Kentucky

Re: Ad policy

#11 Post by David Jones »

Maybe we could incorporate that function into our classifieds. Solves everyones problem.
If I had known I would live this long I would have pushed the envelope a little harder.
Cymru am byth
David Jones #9715

User avatar
Phil Planck
356 Fan
Posts: 2030
Joined: Wed Mar 26, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: NE Michigan, lower penn.

Re: Ad policy

#12 Post by Phil Planck »

How about 1 add per 10 contributing posts, or 10 ads for hosting a Holiday.
Phil Planck

chris romney
356 Fan
Posts: 231
Joined: Tue Jul 29, 2008 1:13 pm

Re: Ad policy

#13 Post by chris romney »

One of the reasons I prefer to buy parts from the Registry classifieds is the likelihood of getting an as advertised part at a fair price is much higher than if I'm buying on EBay or the Samba. In my opinion, that's the case because many of us know each other, and if you behave badly, there is a real risk of being asked to leave. If the classifieds continue to grow in volume, primarily from postings by professionals or non-participating club members, it becomes much more difficult to discern who is really selling the parts. I think it's not a bad idea to have some sort of nominal fee for those whose participation in the club is limited to posting ads in the classifieds. Perhaps those ads could be differentiated by calling them "sponsored" ads or something similar. It would be a good way to generate some extra revenue for the club and would still be providing the pro's an inexpensive platform, with direct access to a finely targeted group of buyers. I'm not sure if it would work here, but it would also be helpful to have some sort of rating for sellers. I'm not against having professionals post ads in the classifieds. They are providing a valuable service. As in the stock market, liquidity is good and the more parts we have access to the better. It's much better than having them collect dust in someone's garage.

Chris
 

User avatar
Neil Bardsley
356 Fan
Posts: 1099
Joined: Tue Mar 20, 2012 10:21 am
Location: London

Re: Ad policy

#14 Post by Neil Bardsley »

I think there is a half way easy step for this. Include the number of posts, like in the forum, next to a users name in the ads?

User avatar
Sean M Rooks
356 Fan
Posts: 492
Joined: Sun Aug 24, 2014 8:00 pm
Tag: '64 C Coupe
Location: Richmond, VA

Re: Ad policy

#15 Post by Sean M Rooks »

Bob Forman wrote:Friends in the Porsche-, camera-, and boat-worlds seem to be grousing more and more about the spiraling costs of selling on eBay. The alternative is to advertise on enthusiast sites such as ours (or CL). If this turns out to be the case, our classifieds section has a great future. As suggested above, a slight cost for an insertion could be a future source of revenue, Charging a small amount to advertise may serve to offset an increase in club dues, defray future expenses, as well as dampen the usurpation of our free ad service.
I just had this recent experience. I was selling two steering wheels I no longer need after doing a couple of swaps in the hopes to use the funds to buy new interior panels for my C, and I got creamed by Ebay fees. I got $500 for both wheels and the Ebay bill was $90. Ouch. I vowed to sell my Porsche parts primarily on enthusiast boards from now on.

Also from experience I've found that the board members tend to frown on for-sale posts from people who joined just to post classifieds, even if the parts are relevant to the community. A lot of those boards kind of self police and at least push for ad posters to contribute with a pay membership before posting.

Don't you have to be a Registry member to post on our board and classifieds? I kind of like the idea of sponsored ads, assuming you could filter them out (as Adam suggested for the Samba).

Post Reply