Opinions Please: Daily proliferation, several dealer/distributor ads,..
Good Day...I'm not looking to start a war, nor am I asking this question to cast any negative comments on one or more manufacturers and distributors/dealers that look to use Audiogon ads EVERY day or at least weekly to post a long stream of the same ads over and over again on new equipment be it Tube, Solid State or Cabling as if it were their own personal bulletin board. There are several that do this on a daily and weekly basis. It makes it difficult to go through the "new today" and "new yesterday" auctions, classifieds, etc..and figure out what regular members and others who post one-at-a-time postings have put up that day.
I think it would be sensible for Audiogon to consider putting up a separate "Dealer/Manucturer" Sell Forum right here on the same site that would allow them to conduct their business while keeping regular member/others' ads which we also pay money for, in a place where these ads stand a chance of showing up earlier in the list, not one page or more down after the repeating dealer, distributor and manufacturer ads are done.
The firms in question are all fine members of the forum and provide good products; I think that Audiogon should consider setting up a page for them and give regular members listings a better chance of being easily seen.
Your Posting is RARE! AWARD WINNING SEVEN YEARS RUNNING! EXTRA EXCLAMATION POINTS FOR !!!!
Seriously, I too am annoyed for the repetitive ads. (I would like an advanced filter system so I can turn off certain categories. But then, a lot of ads don't fit with their categories.)
On the other hand, these ads are placed by the very dealers I will contact to research/shop/buy my next audio component. So I guess it's a necessary layer to sift through.
I guess I'm just glad I'm not the only one annoyed by this.
I agree with the OP and suggest the "Classified" ad section be for private party ads and create another section for dealer & manufacture use or install a filter system like craigslist has.
Thanks for breaching this topic. The proliferation of dealer ads just gets me too. It makes for filtering for results more difficult or getting your gear out for sale out there. I agree that there should be a filter or search criteria for ads by dealer or ads by private party owner. Craigslist has this kind of filter so it is possible for A'gon to adopt something similar.
I was just thinking the same thing this past week. So many ads with new gear at full list price. What is the point of Audiogon anymore???
Hopefully more folks that are looking for the Audiogon of old will find the other audio internet sale sites, where fewer dealers roam. HiFiShark may help them find the other Audiomarts, Audio Asylum Trader, etc.
That said, I do agree that it is time here for separate new from the used sections. I have no issue with dealers posting ads for used equipment.
I think it's a good idea to have a separate category for personal ads. Otherwise, people will stop posting here and find another site like usaudiomart. That site is getting lots of new ads every day.
Thank you all for the feedback...I'm going to forward the thread to Support and see if they will consider it.
Viridian: I don't have a "severed weight problem" but do appreciate the consideration :-) Just for the record, this website can choose to cater more to dealers and better support dealer showcase functionality HOWEVER, anyone well-versed in user interface usability will tell you that you can easily accommodate both types of patrons, all of whom pay ever-increasing fees by having appropriate separation of the way in which you interact with the site.
I agree. If you are a small-time seller, your ad usually needs to be seen (and sold) within the first 72 hours or so otherwise, because of Audiogon FIFO listing system, it just gets buried under the barrage of dealer ads and the number views drops off dramatically until day 29.
I would agree but in my opinion it's fine when dealers post used or demo gear a lot of those ads are good gear at good prices. But what really annoys me and many others it seems, is the constant relisting even of used gear. As someone who scans New Today on a daily basis, I find myself seeing the exact same ads over and over. Very annoying indeed.
Thank-you to Audiogon for allowing free thought and Zephyr24069 for leadership. I just purchased a really cool sub from a private party and this was his first sale on Audiogon. The price was a bargain and I could not be more pleased. The behavior and demeanor by this first time seller was truly 10 for 10 and reminded me of what Audiogon used to be. A story...
Years ago I was stationed on a ship in the Military called the Zephyr out of the amphib base in Coronado. Counter drug ops south of the border was the mission and we would sail for long sometimes boring... weeks at a time. One December morning a couple hundred miles off shore in the High Seas, the cook decided to throw some aging chow over the side. First one shark, then five, then a hundred of evil ruthless man eaters appeared... even eating some of their own kind. My point? It is hard to even find a great deal let alone afford to buy anything decent. The dealers are so overpriced, arrogant and ruthless, they forget or are not aware some of us just enjoy and love, the hobby of Hi Fi. And yes...strongly like Audiogon for its unique style and grace. They claim this,-that,- and the other, when in reality, Its more fun to make your own cables and interconnects or buy used from a solid member who was just fortunate enough to acquire a new model. I like Kurt Doslo at Echo Hi Fi in Portland Oregon. He is an educated man who actually has a real store, made out of real building materials. The exception. The dude loves music first... the gear to reproduce it is second. Also... my man out of New York making Signal Cables, one hard working engineer who would rather be honest then greedy. Some of you long time audiogon.com members who actually know me and for some reason read this will say "Yeah but your system is a couple of hundred grand" . That may be true, but my wife will tell you... I did not start out that way and honestly, I am most happy listening to my vintage stuff out in the garage working on some old piece of crap. Truthfully, my old vintage stuff is way sweeter than the tasteless overpriced yuppie gear these dealers push on us every week. Good day.
Thank you again to everyone who responded! If I get any replies from Support, i will let everyone know! This could all be accomplished too with filters, an even easier technique than a multi-tab visual metaphor or other technique...
Yes, a dealer tab located next to "New Today", "Amazing Deals" and "Hot Items" would work well. It is frustrating to want to peruse new listings of used items but instead slogging through a ton of repetitive dealer ads.
This comes to mind every time I hit the site (usually daily). Thanks to Zephyr for saying it out loud!
Definitely what I had in mind...that way we can find any new dealer or manufacturer posting while not having them clog up the view of regular member ads, auctions, etc....A reputable dealer posting a singular piece of good quality used or demo gear should also be included its the regular user ad/auction postings.
Jmcgrogan: it's not fallen on deaf ears to be sure but work had to come first this past week (bummer) so I've not been on the boards all the much in the last week or so...
ebm: love your one-liners as always; you'll never wear out a keyboard :-)
All: Thank you to everyone for your contributions, glad we all agree and suspect there are many more of us out there,...unfortunately as some predicted, when I forwarded this to Audiogon, they thanked me/us for being valued members of the forum and tried to tell me it was not possible to do without detracting from the amount of traffic dealer ads would receive (paraphrasing). I countered with the fact that they could easily create a user interface metaphor that split up everything, could still focus on page-load on dealer ad sections but could allow users the choice (via tab views, search/filters, etc...) of what we wanted to see. They went on to say they value the feedback and will continue to consider it. I don't think anything will change in the near-future but I'll keep sending this in regularly and see if they finally agree to making some changes....
Have a great (rest of the) weekend and happy listening!!!
No doubt this contributes in many cases to people spending time on other forums elsewhere though each of the other options has its positives and negatives (many use antiquated forum-style thread-view user interfaces which I happen not to like personally and find hard to locate and follow threads, some have a very clique-ish group behavior pattern where if you don't agree with the forum's moderator, you are ostracized,....etc). Overall the drop in qualitative traffic on Audiogon is a bit sad and I'm hoping things turn around. No matter what, as long as this seems to cater to dealers/mfg and their repetitive ad postings, the site will be harder to use and make the prospect of selling or buying used gear for us normal users that much more difficult...if one more "Bu... of Audio" or interconnect "Component of the Year" or any of the other highly repetitive interconnect or amp manufacturer or dealer ads shows up with long lists from the same source multiple times per week, it will be enough to make someone want to barf!
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
