I would also contribute, and tried to last spring, but that's not going to fix this issue
Having members pay a little bit to be able to sell more would only turn away sponsors

All I'm looking for here is a little format simplicity

I can't figure out what the purpose of this change is. I can understand adding new fields to a database record so that it becomes easily sortable but the prefix changes proposed here don't make any sense to me. Perhaps a list of Canadian cities would make more sense but I really don't understand what his goal is here

But wouldn't that be the point. If it did turn away a few sponsors, hopefully the added contributions from the members would offset the loss so this site can remain open and fair. Now do we have enough members to even try this, I have no idea. This would best be left for canreef's board and accountant to budget expected surplus or loss with this proposed change. Maybe you could even lower the sponsor fee depending on the member contributions.

Its obvious to stifle members from chop shopping or buying corals for the sole purpose of selling. I can agree to that....

But if its been in your system for a long time and frags are grown by you.....fair game I say.

If this still doesnt sound fair I know other forums have implemented different levels of sponsorships so even the basement small time fragger can afford to sponsor. Most people who want to do just a little side business by buying and selling or buying, fragging and selling; just might not have the income to justify the cost....so they are stuck.

All good points Darryl

What is wrong with chop shopping and how will the prefix prevent it?

I don't think it has much to do with hobbiests selling frags at all. It would have been brought up in the past if it was a problem with the paying vendors.
I do think it has to do with people that are running "mini businesses" out of their house. These in my opinion are the people who make a living by undercutting lfs's prices and end up putting them out of business and a paying sponsor/vendor should have every right to get upset.
Just my opinion but guys selling frags is not the issue..

Anytime a hobbyist propagates a coral for sell or trade that is better than buying from an LFS imho. The less we remove from the oceans the better.

running a chop shop without sponsorship is taking away business from the vendors that pay to advertise frags.
Not real sure how prefixes will stop it tho :)

If there's anybody who should be complaining about any of the rules of this site it should be only those who are actually paying for the site. No member at all should be complaining. I personally think the Random Thoughts thread is a total joke and just a source for those who like to post pad. My solution to that is to not read it. There is far too many members that think of themselves as moderators by jumping on people's posts and stating the rules of the site. ie: prices, location, how old a thread is and even grammar. Why don't you people let the mods do as they are appointed. Police the website. This site sure isn't like it used to be. Start sharing some knowledge about reefing. Some of you members want totally stupid amounts for your frags. Why not start trading instead of selling. Or better yet start giving frags and corals away if they get too big or you no longer like them. What goes around comes around. As I've been told on this site by several people "if you don't like it go away or don't read it". I don't like this or that and the website should do this or else. If your not paying for the site or a mod than you have no right stating rules or complaining. Until that time than keep your fingers off the keys and keep it related to what the sites actually supposed to be about.

If you add poll to this thread or post a poll ,everyone could vote.

I dont like it too.

Also I dont like the posts are not editable anymore!!!! so annoying

My sentiments exactly. Been watching this thread since it was posted, and surprised that you, Madreefer are the only one that thinks the same way as me. We don't own this site, and it is a privilege that we can use it without having to pay anything. Whoever owns a company can do or change any policies or ways of doing business any time he wants.
You guys shouldn't complain. If you don't like it, just leave.
The rest of you sound like a bunch of bleeding heart liberals.

This site is not a democracy. I was fortunate enough to find it a few years back and it has helped me learn some things and also helped me buy and sell a few things. If they change the format, I learn to adapt, or go find me a new site with a better format that suits my liking.

Being able to edit posts was good for the sales threads. But I think I prefer it without. People tend to skew their normal behaviour on the internet and that feature helps to keep people accountable for their actions.

and that helps make the site better how???


like it or not the site revolves around its members , sure its a business...but its a business that wouldnt exist without its clientelle......the members. alot of canreefs members put in alot of time and effort, sure they dont need to but they do and because of this we created a community. i dont know about you but ive met just about most the members from calgary,edmonton and st.johns prob over a 100 people, im friends with alot of them its gone farther then just people on a site. we all are what makes the site and our imput is important, it helps keep the site interesting and with the amount of smart minds around here its no doubt the site will get better.......a little debate over headlines and policies are to be expected its part of expanding and growing:)

And I've got to say, after all the posts so far, this thread has remained very civil. Thanks to everyone for keeping it that way.
While yes, this is a business, and no, it's not a democracy, it is a community of hobbyists that come here, some as regulars, and some new, to enjoy a common topic.
We like to keep the board as a place people like to come and chat with their friends, or rant about how they just killed everything :(
Feedback on "features", good or bad, help keep the board as a place people like to come back to...
There have been some good suggestions so far, and I'll be bringing them up for discussion with the rest of the team. There's a few things I'd like to see happen here to make the hobby better and easier, without stepping on sponsor toes.
Anyway, carry on, I've asked the boss to read this, and hopefully explain the new format (cause I'm confused :razz: )

Hello

Brad thanks and have been watching it. I welcome the feedback but am on the road so can't reply properly at length (am on an iPhone). So keep commenting civil, just drop the can't edit feature as that was done much earlier on for a separate reason. Also keep in mind the following with the comments and discussions:
1) Prefix isn't setup to curb fragging. It provides a means for me to generate some stats of the top members who initiates what categories of Buy / Sell threads. And who are the ones abusing the site to do basement businesses. It serves as a guiding metric only for further follow up.
2) Canreef don't kneel in front of sponsors but does have to appreciate their contribution and watch out for their associated concerns. We don't mind losing sponsors if it conflicts with keeping the site opened for discussions and so far I haven't seen how we have come to become that way. Maybe we should start a separate thread to collect evidence of this later so we can see what we can do to avoid this.
3) I too hate the length and wordiness of the current format. But acronyms are confusing to me as well. So anyone who can suggests shorter phrases that carries the same meaning I can change to that also.
4) Didn't know it'd cause an issue to New Posts since last visit feature so I'll investigate a bit on that separately.

Titus

Maybe set it so that those wordy categories are picked while making the thread so it's logged for your stat taking but make it show as FS, LF, etc on the thread titles with no link? Short and sweet and makes sure you don't forget it in title. :)

Or single words like sale, buy, group, need?

Just a few thoughts. The site has made the change, the reasons aren't for me to worry about first because I rarely sell anything and two because it's beyond my control. If I was to list something for sale it looks like all I would have to do is add a couple of clicks to either choose a prefix or not to, big deal. Second, and it took me awhile to see what others were seeing and complaining about. If you want, click on "portal" rather than "new posts" by doing so the prefixs aren't shown in the title line of the post. The threads all list in the exact same order minus the prefix and the forumn that the thread is posted in, both useless information for me so I'm no worse off. I have never used the "new posts" tab and have always used "portal" both take you to the same location one just without the extra info that does seem rather annoying but can be avoided

I don't think it is so much that they are wordy, but more confusing.

So if I am selling hardware, I am assuming it becomes one off. If I am selling coral frags, it could be one off or recurrent. But what time frame do I use. Let's say it was 1 month, 3 months, or even 6 months since my last frag sale. At what interval is it recurrent instead of one off. I don't think the one off of excess goods prefix is really useful.

Also, are you going to be moderating people and their use of the prefixes? What if someone always uses A rather than B as a prefix even though B might have been the better choice. I think this will give you more head aches then it's going to relieve and still not clear up the problem of appeasing the vendors by trying to weed out chop shops and small business from members who are just trying to subsidize this expensive hobby.

Either way, I still like the idea of implemementing a member contribution tool. You just have to make it clear that the contribution is a donation and does not give you any say in the operation of the site.

Can't a person just pick "no prefix" and not worry about it?.....nope I guess not, just tried.. lol.. Personally I wouldn't worry about time lines. If they think you are abusing the privilege of selling they will let you know.

Uh, nope, not me :) I'm not sure I'd know what to moderate. :razz:

I do, however, like the Portal option, all the ugly goes away -lol

Hello,
Okay finally have been able to read through these properly in front of a computer. I try to respond to the comments and queries as much as I can.
If we use Prefix to select locations, we'd have the same issue though one can say province acronyms are shorter which is something I'm keen to make it so for the existing prefixes as well. Otherwise, I can look into removing these prefixes in the New Posts results.

You mean linking as in most but the "Want To Buy" category are linked to the FAQ with explanation? No need to be afraid. While it doesn't mean we can cater to every requests it doesn't mean we can't listen to them and see what we can do about them as long as we keep the discussions civilized.

It appears that you are not aware there are indeed links in place for the Notice area above each of the Buy / Sell forum pages, and most of the Prefixes themselves, to the FAQ section explaning what the categories are.

Haven't forgotten about the membership who drives the traffic to the site, though not sure why we have come across as such because the implementation was meant to generate stats for me to see how the site is being used and who may be abusing it.

I agree. I hate the current way of how things are but that's how they have been for quite some time already. If we can make them shorter I'm all up for it but I'd get confused with "FS, FT, FF, LF, etc". One of the reasons for the prefixes is I want to have a process in place where the person starting the thread is also declaring the nature of the thread (ie recurrent or one off, etc). If someone keeps on doing recurrent sale of quality corals every 3 weeks then we need to keep an eye on it. If someone keeps on doing one off sale of quality corals then we need to start investigating if someone is knowingly making false declarations. It is similar to the intention of filling in the Custom's entry card declaring how much and what kind of goods you are bringing in to the country. Yes people can falsify declarations but that's another story. However, this can partially be achieved by using simpler categories such as "For Sale, For Trade, etc" and us building a smarter reporting tool for generating the metrics.

Can you give me the acronyms you have in mind? I disagree with no links as not everyone have the same interpretations. I know myself is one of them.

Understood on what you meant by part of the title says you have read it and part of it says you haven't. However, depending on how we take this I may adjust the way the page is displayed to remove the Prefixes. The idea of choosing a city is great but that should be evident from the Location you have entered when you registered. As for agreeing with a limitation, we haven't set a limit. The Prefixes is a means for assist us in collecting information on the types of posts being made over time.
For "One Off Sale of Excess Goods from Personal Shipments", we don't expect someone to order 10 bukets of salt every month and then have to do this one off sale for 9 buckets in the shipment. This doesn't mean there is an issue with someone ordering sand and rock in the first quarter and have to get rid of some because there is too much, and then ordering snails in the second quarter and have to get rid of some because there were 5 too many, then followed by ordering ordering carbon and have to get rid of a few extra bags. But for those who declare this every month and selling off rock, then yes I'd start wondering what's happening.
For "One Off Sale of Personal Items", we don't expect someone keep having Protein Skimmers of all sorts of varieties being available and selling them every so often.
For "Recurrent Sale of Personal Items", this is the category which fragging corals belongs to and sure do this once in a while no problem. If there is an abundance of all sorts of corals and every month we have a sale, then yes something I'd like to know about before some paying sponsor write us a good PM or one of the Staff members getting fed up because they inquire the involved member, who then give them headaches, and in either case we have to read through all the threads and posts the involved members have made in order to get a feel of the history and jist of what happened.

You will not be able to post without choosing one.

You mean everythign starts with the same Prefix so they all appeared to be mixed together? This would be an issue as long as we use Prefix, even if we use it to categorize seller's location, or using acryonyms as suggested. And the thread editing feature was removed for an entirely different reason.

Believe it or not we do have to deal with issues with some selling quite a bit of stuff. If I do a report on the top 10 person electing this category and it reveals the top 2 have been making 5 of this type of posts of similar goods, then yes some discussions will start happening. This is now being done manually by some of the Staff members viewing the site scanning through the threads. I hate to see them having to do this and would like to have some process oriented manner that is done on an automated basis.
The "One Off Sale of Personal Items" is meant to assist us to distinguish from "One Off Sale of Excess Goods from Personal Shipments", both belonging to the "FS" category. We might in the long term be using the acronyms or something simpler like "For Sale". Just that the Staff have to read through the threads to find out whether it is from a new shipment or something that has been used for a while and is now being sold.
And yes the location as explained, is on the post as part of your member information.

Vendors have their own forum to post and are not expected to post in the Buy / Sell forums.
If it's a frag every 6 months, then it'd be "Recurrent Sale of Personal Items" as we expect you to frag every so often. Regarding the purchaser not caring what category it is in, we can either change to make the Prefix not appear or change to use it to distinguish whether it is a "For Sale" or "Want To Buy", etc manner which is to be decided.
As for someone constantly selling large quantity of stuff, it's being done manually at the moment. As explained above I'm trying to find a way to automate this to relieve the Staff team from having to read through each post, remember who has been doing what, and then bring up for discussions. One of the aims is to find an automated way to do this.

Titus

Hello,

I have to break this into two posts as the system is complaining it's too long to fit into one.

Don't recall when I saw a commercial sponsor making a thread to sell stuff in the Buy / Sell forum. If you can find someone doing this all the time, please let me know.

We have no intention of shutting the door to fragging. I expect this to happen therefore the category "Recurrent Sale of Personal Items" which I expect to be the case for those who has larger tanks.

We may ended up changing to the simpler categories. The prefixes are indeed mandatory as of this moment. You may see threads without prefixes being listed at the top of the search due to someone making a reply to a thread started before this change.
Regarding you not liking how the category is not bolded on the New Threads result page, this would happen even if we change to the simpler categories.

I've already started liking the idea of the simpler category and this gives me another reason for it.
No need to rant and Canreef don't bow before sponsors, but we practice good business ethics so we don't take their sponsorship fees and do something that is detrimental to them. If we come across a time when we conflict with keeping the sponsors or providing a forum for members to trade, it'd be sponsors who go. In fact I recall we refunded one of the ex-sponsors of his remaining terms because we don't want that sponsor anymore because too many members have had problems with him. Luckily we haven't have to do this too often, and we may very well introduce a work around by accepting sponsorship from members rather than sponsors. Maybe we should start a poll on this.

Okay. +1 on the member sponsorship.

Hopefully wiht my answer to Slick Fork above you shouldn't be worried about stepping on vendors toes if that's what you have been doing. For some, however, we do have to engage in discussions with them but they belong to the extreme minority.

This would have triggered an alert on the reporting and someone will be knocking on your door the next day with a search warrant to take videos and photos of your setup. Just kidding! You'd have instead receive a PM from one of us asking you what are you planning to do.

Yes this is why we promote fragging amongst members. We don't oppress anyone. Will not put announcements on all the forum pages saying we promote fragging. So don't worry.

Okay. +1 on the member sponsorship.

Okay. +1 on the member sponsorship.

I have turned down the idea all along is I have always wanted to keep it as opened as possible. However over time I did have pondered on this as a means to provide different types of service to members. And again if this ended up conflicting with sponsors who sell frags, it's not the member who goes.

Think a poll is required for this. In return from sponsoring, anything you'd ask for specifically?

Can you recommend a few sites for me to reference this idea of different levels of sponsorships? Any suggestions of how we may implement this?

Thanks. Exactly one of the reasons for this prefix thing.

It doesn't. But assist us in identifying who we need to speak to.

This is a separate issue.

Better yet we find a workable solution together.

We appreciate the feedback, comments, and discussions. Some have indeed drove some of us crazy but a lot of good members here indeed.

We will go with either one. I need some time to investigate and think about it through.

Good points about the time frame and confusing aspects. You shouldn't have to if it's being done naturally and not in an abusive manner. But I see how it may still come across as such.

Titus

The sponsor fee for AquariumPros is $3060 per year
The sponsor fee for Reef Central is $6000 per year
And Canreef is less than half of AquariumPros

Your solution to start taxing the members is not the answer to get cheaper fees for sponsors.

THanks Titus for taking the time to address our concerns. It is not just the members that make canreef special but it is the staff too. Cheers!

Now how much to purchase a banner add that proclaims my awesomeness? That would be awesome.

Agreed, thanks for taking the time to reply Titus. Always nice to see ownership involved in these things.

Your logic is flawed my friend.

Relating sponsorship to cost requires a quantity variable, in this case membership. Reefcentral has 289,000 members, Canreef has 9600 therefor by your logic a Canreef sponsorship should cost around $206.00/ year.

You also brandished me by inserting the word "Tax" into my mouth, please reread my statement at no time have I suggested a mandatory payment to all members.

As for the effect, if the site is bringing in revenue from paying members how could that not go to offset the cost of paying sponsors?

I was just thinking the same thing. It's impressive that we've got 7 pages of what is potentially a pretty charged topic and it has remained civilized and thoughtful throughout. Says a LOT about both the members and the staff we have here.

You cant see it as taxing members if its just an optional fee for special percs as preivously mentioned.

Like I said previously, lots of us here visit regularly and have made friends that are interested in this great, but expensive, hobby. If someone wants to come by and visit the forums and not pay a cent, Im sure they will always be able to do that. Those that have mentioned contributing to a optional user fee, would do so for the added percs (<-misspelled on purpose). Lots of other sites give free monthly draws, discount cards for sponsors, tshirts, stickers, special icons, allowing edits of posts?, etc...

It would be up to the admins/owners of the site to work out what, if anything, would be offered for any optional fees.

Just think of it like having 2 versions of canreef:
Basic Version (no fee): The same canreef that you know and love.
Upgraded version (optional user fee): Beefed up version of canreef with a few extra percs.

I have my Visa card waiting if this is the case :lol:.

I would be happy to be a canreef supporter like on reefcentral but of course I don't think it should be manditory.

Like most of us I have membership on various reef sites but canreef is home. I have no problem supporting our community of hobbyist which supports my addiction.

+1

I don't think it's a matter of making things cheaper for sponsors. I think this is more of a conflict of interest issue and how we handle it. The conflict being someone like Coral Master who sells exclusively frags and a non-sponsoring member who runs a frag system of unknown size. I don't imagine guys like Red Coral or Aqua-Digital really have a large concern as we almost never see people saying "Hey, I brought 15 bubble kings up from the states... who wants one"

SOlutions:
Sponsor favourite is to squash the buy and sell forum to limit competition

Member favourite is going to be to tell the sponsors that they buy advertising space and that's it, no guarantees of non-competition from members.

Right now we're trying to meet in the middle and say guys who magically have 10 "surplus" bubble kings every month are out of line but we're going to try to leave individuals alone. This is great in principal but has to be a nightmare for Mod's, especially if some vendors are very vocal and high maintenance causing a lot of unnecessary "investigations". So, I get the need to track who's hitting the buy/sell forums lots to help with complaints.

If I read correctly, Zoaelite is not proposing a mandatory membership fee or tax... more of a voluntary contribution to allow us to reduce the dependency on sponsors and move to a "you're just buying advertising space" kind of model.

I'll suggest a refinement of this idea. We could introduce varied levels of membership/sponsorship with the perks for paid membership being more priveliges in the buy and sell forums. A quick/rough example:
Level 1: General member very limited # of unique buy/sell threads allowed every month - FREE
Level 2: Preferred member: More unique buy/sell threads every month, indication on avatar or in signature of preferred status. - Cost = $$
Level 3: Sponsor: Own forum, banner adds, indication of sponsorship in profile/avatar/signature. - Cost = $$$$ minus the funds raised by preferred members. So if we have 10 sponsors (Just pulling numbers out of a hat here) who currently pay $1200/year for sponsorship status and we raise $2000 from selling preferred memberships, the sponsors have thier cost offset by$200 each. This would keep board revenues the same, help appease sponsors who might feel slighted and allow guys like reefwars and others to continue as they have been.

In my above example, non-sponsoring actual businesses (Brick and mortar store or website) would still be prohibited from selling/advertising/marketing on the board.

Zoa, you can't base sponsorship price on member quantity alone, think about target audience and competition. Canadian forum, Canadian market, how many Canreef members are both Canadian and active in the hobby then ask how many sponsors to members do we have. Now ask the same about RC before you compare apples.

Plus Canreef sponsorship is cheap people! A couple lines in a newspaper would cost significantly more and provide significantly less results. And why are we even discussing this? Are sponsors complaining about the cost? And if they are that's between them and Canreef staff.

And there is a big difference between someone like Coral Master and someone with a frag tank. Coral master brings in corals for the sole purpose of fragging them, this is a business not personal propagation, clear as day and that's before you consider a website with a business name which I would assume is registered.

In regards to premium membership to obtain special privileges, IMO dumb, really dumb. To gain such privileges you have remove them from regular membership so you don't gain anything. To actually add things which I have no idea what such things would be you'd have to invest time and money so what's the point there. Donations might be better but if Canreef doesn't need charity why offer it, donate to your food bank or something if you're itching to help someone out.

i completely agree with this , there should be an optional membership fee which in turn allows for certain extras. it wouldnt be mandatory , it would be something someone wanted to do.

for someone new to the hobby paying a fee woulnt be interestig but to members who have been here a while or in the hobby for a long time would enjoy it.

That's kind of what I was getting at. The problem seems to be vendors are getting their nose out of joint because of perceived competition from members and causing a lot of headaches for moderators and Titus. I used Coral Master simply because when I think specialized frags, I think Coral Master (not to suggest that he is the one complaining!)

As Dc4 said.

Lots of other sites give free monthly draws, discount cards for sponsors, tshirts, stickers, special icons, allowing edits of posts?, etc...

That all costs money and time my friend, you don't gain anything. Sponsors can't be expected to just donate items and credit to the site because the site brings in more money. As for editing you think mods will let you break rules cause you pay $20 a year. It wasn't removed so that it could be purchased back. Other sites may need donations to keep it going, or at least that's what the shady guy behind the scenes is telling you, Canreef isn't like that and I don't know why anyone would want it that way.

haha well said

Those were simply examples. Avatars and special icons wouldn't cost anything. If the amount got high enough, they could put part of the proceeds towards the purchase of a piece of equipment to give away. Members could donate frags towards a draw to contributing members. If part of the vendor sponsorship fee was lowered due to member contributions, maybe some vendors would donate items or pass along discounts as a thank you to those members. These are all just ideas. You just have to think outside the box.

Yeap wasn't disagreeing, just throwing in my two bits is all. If vendors can't see the difference and in turn complain about high vendor fees then perhaps they shouldn't be in business anymore as they obviously aren't very good at it. Canreef has shut down plenty of people who are on the real verge of business practices and I'm not aware of anyone that gets away with it for long.