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Classifieds and the old days
- Thread starter Z3n
- Start date
Z3n
Squid.
Nope. It used to be that BARF would hover at market value, with the occasional screaming deal and most being fair to both buyer and seller. These days, asking has gone up, sale time has gone up, and prices are above market, oftentimes significantly so.
I would say in part that's because people have stopped calling other people out on absurd pricing (unless it gets really crazy, and then half the posts get deleted and...do you sense a theme?
)
Z3n
Squid.
Just the sellers on BARF, but not the ones on CL?
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Nope. It used to be that BARF would hover at market value, with the occasional screaming deal and most being fair to both buyer and seller. These days, asking has gone up, sale time has gone up, and prices are above market, oftentimes significantly so.
I would say in part that's because people have stopped calling other people out on absurd pricing (unless it gets really crazy, and then half the posts get deleted and...do you sense a theme?
We've also had instances of barfers letting an awesome bike go for a great price, only to see that bike flipped on cl for twice the barf price.
It makes me mad, but on the other hand, how the hell do you do something about THAT ?
Z3n
Squid.
We've also had instances of barfers letting an awesome bike go for a great price, only to see that bike flipped on cl for twice the barf price.
It makes me mad, but on the other hand, how the hell do you do something about THAT ?
The same way you'd handle it in real life? I mean, again, this comes back to "let people talk about these things in the classifieds". For a worse example, if someone known for ripping people off came back and started posting up about buying bikes, would it really be a reasonable thing to keep a seller in the dark about that? Or would it just be "DMTAETSYB" (Don't meet them and expect to sell your bike). Yaknow, the old damn-tate-sib.
I mean, all of this comes back to "just let people hash out the details about bike sales and the classified in the classifieds". It's certainly just as on topic as people throwing out "GLWS".
That shit gets under my skin. I don't think it would necessarily address those types of issues, but I do think the classified should have an annual subscription fee. I pay a $25 annual fee for classifieds on another forum of a different topic and it has filtered out the vast majority of the riff raff. They also have a feedback system and you find fair prices from serious sellers, totally worth it.
Z3n
Squid.
Hell, I've already given twice that for the sale of bikes on the site.
I mean, honestly, I probably shouldn't be trying to change this - it makes it easier for me to sell my bikes when they're usually the lowest priced bieks in their realm.
I mean, honestly, I probably shouldn't be trying to change this - it makes it easier for me to sell my bikes when they're usually the lowest priced bieks in their realm.
Z3n
Squid.
If we're going to allow "secret codes for overpriced", why not just allow people to say "It's overpriced for reason xyz".
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Z3n
Squid.
I can't cut and paste the text you have directly because I can't edit your post and the quote functionality doesn't capture it, and I can't quote the OP because the thread is closed. If you dump the rules directly into something I can modify, I can clean it up.
But that's the gist of it. Doesn't need to be anything crazy.
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Click on the
Once you've made your suggestions, take it to the next step and come up with a plan for moderation. Something to enable the mods to agree on the definitions of respectful, disrespectful, rude, and then how to actually enforce these definitions in an unbiased and consistent manner that doesn't look like favoritism or like we're "protecting" someone. I'm serious. You see, when moderation moves into a grey area (like you are suggesting), claims of favoritism and inconsistency are all we hear.
Z3n
Squid.
Click on theand it will take you directly to the quoted post.
Once you've made your suggestions, take it to the next step and come up with a plan for moderation. Something to enable the mods to agree on the definitions of respectful, disrespectful, rude, and then how to actually enforce these definitions in an unbiased and consistent manner that doesn't look like favoritism or like we're "protecting" someone. I'm serious. You see, when moderation moves into a grey area (like you are suggesting), claims of favoritism and inconsistency are all we hear.
Yeah, I can't quote that post because the thread is closed, and I'm not a mod
Plan for moderation?
Use the same standards you use for personal attacks. There's always going to be some edge cases where it's marginal and people might get hung up on it, but to start with, lean towards warnings vs. deleting posts or probations so people can learn where the line is.
You're never going to be able to apply the rules totally "fairly" in the mind of everyone, so it's pointless to try and come up with a concrete plan for moderation of anything that's subjective. You just communicate the reasons for warnings & probations, and modify the standards as you go to help keep positive community engagement going. IMO, getting overly focused on enforcement leads to missing the point - enforcement exists to maintain community engagement and a respectful environment, and should be modified regularly to make sure it's serving the needs of the community.
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How do we remain consistent when warning or probation? What is the threshold $ for deciding what is an insulting offer to purchase the item?
The idea that we need to protect a random buyer is really weird to me. It's like hanging out at a dealership and giving advice to the people you see walk up.
The idea that we need to protect a random buyer is really weird to me. It's like hanging out at a dealership and giving advice to the people you see walk up.
Z3n
Squid.
I don't think it's advantageous to draw a line in the sand - enforcement won't be consistent because there's a lot of variables - the condition of the bike, the seller's price, the supporting documentation the buyer provides, etc. Drawing a line in the sand encourages people to push the limits of that line, which I am guilty of myself - I've gotten quite good at telling people they're fucking morons without actually calling them fucking morons to dodge getting bapped, as you note yourself when you say the content is fine, but the delivery is problematic.
There will always be people like me pushing the limits, so a little vaguery in the enforcement is good to keep people on their toes. Otherwise, it's very easy to dance right up to the line and thumb your nose at authority. I don't feel like the classifieds are a "random motorcycle dealership". It's more like a giant swap with all your friends and some people you don't know yet - you see something for sale, you ask around with your friends about the history of the bike, someone who might know anything about it, and you rely on the community who is there to help you make a better decision.
The people who are buying and selling are both members of the larger community, and the needs of both buyer and seller should be addressed in the process.
Now, you can address that with people posting about classifieds in general, but why have that information that is relevant to classifieds moved out of classifieds, where other people won't be able to search for it, etc. If the goal is really to have a non-interactive classifieds, it would save everyone's time to just reduce them to threads where only the OP can reply. But then again, if you did that, downright fraudulent activity could go undetected entirely.
In my mind - the mods invest a lot of time in deleting posts because they're not allowed, when the problem isn't that people shouldn't know the things that are being posted, but they're being posted in a disrespectful fashion. If the mods are going to enforce classifieds postings, they should do it in a way that encourages positive community engagement, rather than simply mass deleting and causing everyone to rehash the same shit over and over. Hell, the 07 SMC post still isn't corrected, the ad is still wrong, and the corrected information has been deleted out of the thread. How does that help anyone?
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A few lines, in no particular order:
Inconsistent moderation, whether real or imagined, is a huge problem and needs to be avoided at all costs. It undermines the TOS.
Vague rules are an issue. Many will not vote/act unless the offender has violated a CLEARLY defined rule.
I can tell you now that we spend less time removing posts than we would if we had to discuss individual comments in a thread.
When it comes down to the truth, the truth according to who?
So far, what you are proposing will increase our workload.
Inconsistent moderation, whether real or imagined, is a huge problem and needs to be avoided at all costs. It undermines the TOS.
Vague rules are an issue. Many will not vote/act unless the offender has violated a CLEARLY defined rule.
I can tell you now that we spend less time removing posts than we would if we had to discuss individual comments in a thread.
When it comes down to the truth, the truth according to who?
So far, what you are proposing will increase our workload.
Z3n
Squid.
Moderation will always be inconsistent. I can invent a large number of rules to fit the majority of situations, but nothing will ever be absolute. As it sits, the only thing you need to moderate is low effort, no-contribution posts. Delete the rest, but leave the stuff of substance, and encourage people to post things that are substantive.
There's been plenty of inconsistent moderation over the years, simply by human nature, and yet we're still here, aren't we?
Maybe the problem is that you're attempting to define the rules rather than the results you want to see and letting the rules build from the best course of action around results. Maybe the reason that many don't vote or act is because any clearly defined rules is needlessly specific and not applicable to most situations, so in your quest for clearly defined rules, you lose the ability to effectively police negative behavior on the forums, because you're holding up the law as the ideal, rather than the community you want to see.
And why would you have to discuss the posts to remove them? It should be pretty easy to delete one post that says: "400 bucks lol" vs. "Your motorcycle is worth $400 to me because there are these comparative bikes available for 300 bucks, 400 bucks, and 200 bucks. Your asking price of 1.5k isn't in line with the market. If you'd like to sell the bike for something in the range of market value, send me a PM".
I personally think BARF's moderation style is really, really, not scalable - it's better to turn over the subforums to the mods of those subforums, let them run the rules as they see best fits the environment. What is best for the KS is obviously not what is best for General, or the crash forum, or whatever else. And bringing in other mods to moderate those areas seems to defeat the point.
But that's neither here nor there.
There are no absolute truths, so attempting to define the rules as you propose is ultimately futile, and something that you can always consistently hold up as a reason to not change. You're carrying out an intellectually dishonest argument by setting an impossible task (clearly define rules to address situations that aren't clearly definable!) and then claiming that because of that, we shouldn't change the rules.
The currently in place rules are needlessly specific, and that's what makes it easy to fuck with them - as long as you don't outright call someone an asshole, you can tell them they're an asshole all you want. The behavior is still there, it's just couched in flowery terms. The same is true of "GLWS" in the classifieds - the translation is "Your shit is overpriced, lol", but no one can actually say that, and unlike not calling someone an asshole, there's not really a good reason for it. People are saying it anyways, after all. It's just marginally more subtle...just enough to fly over the heads of new riders trying to find decent deals on bikes, which ultimately doesn't serve the needs of the riding community, nor does it make BARF a better environment for people to buy or sell bikes than craigslist.
And again, if the goal is to make BARF like craigslist, then someone should just out and out say that. But I think the idea is more to create a supportive, useful community around motorcycling in the bay.
Only because you seem to believe that any change from the status quo requires mod consensus to make even the smallest decision about deleting a post. You're relying on narrowly defined rules to make moderation easier, without focusing on the outcomes for the community vs. the moderation itself.
At the end of the day, this shit isn't rocket science. Yeah, mods are going to misstep sometimes, that's a mistake and you apologize and everyone gets over it. Users are gonna get bapped sometimes for the wrong reasons, shit happens. I think that rather than striving for an unenforceable ideal, it's better to realize that we're all human, ask forgiveness on occasion for when we fuck up, and try and learn from it. Maybe after a month or 2 we'll see the pattern that we should form the rules from, maybe after a month or 2 nothing will have changed, maybe it'll make the forums more useful. But you can't establish that without trying something new, although you can forever argue in favor of the status quo, just like any dogmatic practice with the weight of history and inertia behind it.
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Z3N,
First, your input is appreciated.. Thank You !
Now;
You have some valid concerns, and you make some good points, BUT, I'm a little concerned about your lack of validation for the existing set of rules.
I especially like these two points you made;
"If the mods are going to enforce classifieds postings, they should do it in a way that encourages positive community engagement"
"It's more like a giant swap with all your friends and some people you don't know yet"
Believe it or not, the mods in classified prefer the same thing.
The current rules for classified may indeed be more biased toward the seller. I don't see this as a bad thing, we have all seen how personal vendettas, and e-thuggery can easily be perpetuated on-line. As a mod, I can tell you that a sizeable percentage of people love to attack and dog-pile online just because they can, we aim to prevent that, and that sort of behavior is why the rules are biased toward the seller.
First, your input is appreciated.. Thank You !
Now;
You have some valid concerns, and you make some good points, BUT, I'm a little concerned about your lack of validation for the existing set of rules.
I especially like these two points you made;
"If the mods are going to enforce classifieds postings, they should do it in a way that encourages positive community engagement"
"It's more like a giant swap with all your friends and some people you don't know yet"
Believe it or not, the mods in classified prefer the same thing.
The current rules for classified may indeed be more biased toward the seller. I don't see this as a bad thing, we have all seen how personal vendettas, and e-thuggery can easily be perpetuated on-line. As a mod, I can tell you that a sizeable percentage of people love to attack and dog-pile online just because they can, we aim to prevent that, and that sort of behavior is why the rules are biased toward the seller.
Z3n
Squid.
I guess what I don't understand is this:
The rules don't need to be biased towards anyone to stop dog-piles and other e-bullshit. I propose that change to the rules because the existing rules allow for all kinds of crappy behavior from sellers while not allowing buyers or the community to really address that behavior except in a very limited scope.
Personal vendettas usually aren't executed with respect and courtesy, so nothing will change under the new rules, and if that personal vendetta is because of a negative experience, well, it might be worthwhile for other potential buyers to know that that is who they're dealing with.
People dogpiling tends to be posts of little substance, so again - that's why those rules are in place. In my ideal world, classifieds would have an ad, and then a couple of detailed posts about potential issues with the bike, history, or any known details from the community, and the seller could address each of those things - basically, enough accountability that someone is unlikely to post up something misleading, knowing that they're not only going to be called on it, but also held accountable.
As it is, there's zero accountability on the seller side, because even if you provide good information countering the seller's misinformation, you're probably going to get your post deleted. Yet the same is not true of the seller, who can post whatever misinformation they like and it will basically never be removed or edited.
In my mind, the buyer and the sellers are both members of the same community and should be held to the same standards - either by the mods or by the membership. God knows I stand on both sides of that fence regularly, and god knows people have taken advantage of that disconnect in the past with little to no repercussions.
The rules don't need to be biased towards anyone to stop dog-piles and other e-bullshit. I propose that change to the rules because the existing rules allow for all kinds of crappy behavior from sellers while not allowing buyers or the community to really address that behavior except in a very limited scope.
Personal vendettas usually aren't executed with respect and courtesy, so nothing will change under the new rules, and if that personal vendetta is because of a negative experience, well, it might be worthwhile for other potential buyers to know that that is who they're dealing with.
People dogpiling tends to be posts of little substance, so again - that's why those rules are in place. In my ideal world, classifieds would have an ad, and then a couple of detailed posts about potential issues with the bike, history, or any known details from the community, and the seller could address each of those things - basically, enough accountability that someone is unlikely to post up something misleading, knowing that they're not only going to be called on it, but also held accountable.
As it is, there's zero accountability on the seller side, because even if you provide good information countering the seller's misinformation, you're probably going to get your post deleted. Yet the same is not true of the seller, who can post whatever misinformation they like and it will basically never be removed or edited.
In my mind, the buyer and the sellers are both members of the same community and should be held to the same standards - either by the mods or by the membership. God knows I stand on both sides of that fence regularly, and god knows people have taken advantage of that disconnect in the past with little to no repercussions.
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