Ideas for improving the Watch Sales forum

[beshannon]

Price listed in the title of the posting and pictures are mandatory

[beshannon]

Price listed in the title of the posting and pictures are mandatory

[neveronmonday]

I am sick of looking at for sale postings and having to read paragraphs of descriptions just trying to find the condition of the watch and the sales price.

I think that there should be LESS regulation on the sales forum.

There's just no getting around the fact that if you, as a buyer, don't want any nasty surprises, then you're going to have to communicate with the seller.

One man's "good condition" is not the same as another man's "good condition".
One man's "normal wear marks" is another man's "superficial scratches".
A scale of 0% to 100% means nothing without a detailed description.
But one man's "detailed description" is not the same as another man's "detailed description".
It takes a back-and-forth communication between the two parties to make a good trade.

All I really need posted in a sales thread itself is this:

1) The make and model of the watch.
2) Whether it's "New", "Used", or "Abused".
3) And the asking price.

Anything else that I might want to know, including pictures, I can get for myself by private communication with the seller.



NOM

[TakesALickin]

PMWF has a suggested format that is pre-filled into each new sales post.

Some use some don't.

I moderated at PMWF for seven years and lobbied for the kind of automatic drop down box tylerad1 is suggesting. The software didn't allow for it, so in the end we created the suggetsed format that you've referred to. As you note, some use it, some don't.

The reason I asked for the change was more for the benefit of the mods than the benefit of buyers. Having to review dozens of sales posts each day was difficult when the mandatory info was not required to be provided in an easy to find format. It could be very time consuming and frustrating to try to determine if a seller was in compliance with the rules.

I can't imagine though, that having all that info at the top of a sales post (as our suggested format provided and as tylerad1 would achieve with the drop down box format) would be anything other than beneficial for a buyer. Who wouldn't want pertinent info organized in a manner that makes it easy to find?

[Nikos]

I hate the idea of a numerical feedback system. A numerical system is easy to manipulate and basically worthless. References are the way to do it and is what we have now. The watch deals forum is a basically a list of references posted by the refer-ee rather than the refer-er.

[flipangle]

Along the same lines as discussed above...Once an item has been designated sold, maybe the color of the font should change so that one can see quickly that it's been sold. Maybe it could be automatically be bumped down or even be moved to another page altogether, a "recently sold" page.

[a-Tom-ic]

i guess i'm about 15 transactions in with the wus sales forums. much less than many but more than some.

first i say thank you to the mods who keep that section clean. the rule about 'no discussion', which i first didn't understand, is actually very good for keeping that forum more usable (although we miss the possibility of learning something important that another viewer pm'd the seller about, such as condition, etc).

i also emphatically agree about keeping the asking price intact. if the two parties negotiate something else privately, fine, but a price reference is extremely useful for both later buyers and sellers.

basically, i disagree that we need more rules or a form, or a new grading scale. clear pictures, fast pm's, and following one's gut is enough for me.

my only suggestion is this. paypal prohibits its customers from charging an extra fee to use their service. when a member posts "+3% if using paypal", for example, he is violating his agreement with paypal- and it is a legal agreement. my personal response to this is that i've never, here or on any other forum, bought from someone that added a paypal fee. i would like the mods to consider enforcing this - i.e. extend paypal's own policy - but even without such a rule, i will continue to make my own judgments about who to buy from.

edit: by the way, another vbulletin board i visit uses the itrader 2 plugin for feedback. it works very well, is integrated into the forum, and easily establishes a trader's history.

[katmando]

The only thing I'd like to see is the sale price, condition in the first sentence, so I can highlight the post and not have to open it if I don't like what I see.

[rcook55]

As for new ideas, I think a FEEDBACK system is much more usefull and overdue. I know we have the Watch Deals thread but a numerical Feeback system that is posted in each users Avatar area is awesome to have. cheapassgamer.com has one and it works very well. There can be issues with people padding feedback but that is rare. I think it is called iTrader on that particular board.

The current Watch Deals forum is cumbersome to use, not very visible and I don't think half the users here even know it exists.

I suggest that the Mods/Admin take a good look at http://beerology.com/ars/ which is the feedback system used for Ars Technica's Agora which has more than double the posts of WUS' for sale forum and consequently sees a lot of traffic. I've been trading at Ars for several years and no trade/sale goes through without checking 'beer' first.

The grading system used is widely recognissed. What is the point in creating another competing system? Especially since most people know what TZ95 means, and so will be perplexed as to what you re talking about.

For the record I think the sales forum here is excellent and well moderated.

I think that if WUS is to use the TZ scale then a link to said scale needs to be stickied at the top of the WUS for sale forum, also it would be very nice to have pictures of what TZ90+ means. I'm sure there wouldn't be a problem having people submit pics for this.

[Eric L.]

I'd prefer to keep the TZ grading system - its universally accepted and has a point of reference everyone can stick to. Using letter grades I think would be pointless, and "new", "mint", "near mint" also similarly useless given that the numerical percentage system already gives us a far better metric of watch condition than some subjective rating.

As for making the sales forum even more complicated, believe me when I say that the sales forum mods already have their hands full making sure people post the condition and price of the watch, much less having to police a pull down list that people might feel obligated to pick from even if they don't actually know the specs.