"Bumping" ads

[The Mekon (John Briggs)]

What do moderators and membership feel about the practice of bumping ads to get them to the top of the list again?

I feel that this practice should be discouraged. If a member wishes to draw attention to his ad after some days of no response, then they should do this by reducing the price or providing more information/pictures etc. There are some on this forum who have got into the habit of bumping and I feel the moderators need to encourage better behaviour as I feel the practice is quite bad manners

Over to you.

[BeanerSA (Paul)]

On one of the forums I am on, the default sort order in the FS/Trade forum is by date of original post, so bumping has no major effect. I personally dislike bumping.

[sheeny (Al)]

Originally Posted by BeanerSA

On one of the forums I am on, the default sort order in the FS/Trade forum is by date of original post, so bumping has no major effect. I personally dislike bumping.

I like that idea. I have no idea if that is easy or hard to do with our current setup. That'd be something for Mike and/or Terry.

I guess there's always likely to be someone who will perceive they get an advantage by doing it and may simply change the style of the post they make to make it less obvious that bumping is what they are doing.

Personally, I see it as mildly annoying semi-spam - it's something that adds no value and is unwanted to everyone except the "bumper". To me it's also the thin edge of the "hard sell". Nothing turns me off quicker and more definitely than the hard sell. I will happily spend more elsewhere if I get the hard sell - but maybe that's just me.

I don't see a problem with people posting a price drop if they think they've misjudged the market and they feel the need to move the item, but other than that I take a dim view unless the post adds value in some way.

Al.

[iceman (Mike)]

It's generally discouraged and we have warned members before who did it all the time.

At times we've deleted 'bump' posts too, and so the thread ends up down the list again.

If people are wanting to buy a telescope/eyepiece/mount whatever, then they will find your thread through searching or browsing the forum - bumping it into the 'new posts' section isn't just going to make someone think to buy it all of a sudden when they weren't interested the first time around.
That's my view on it anyway.

[glend (Glen)]

Are the rules the same for businesses that run threads in forum sections outside the members 'For Sale' sub-forum?

[CJ (Chris)]

Bumping doesn't bother me in the slightest.
Sometimes you miss posts and inadvertently mark them as read. If I've already seen and it doesn't interest me, I simply don't bother reading it, then mark it as read along with all the other posts that I don't want to read.
Cheers

[mental4astro (Alexander)]

If an item is still available, and the ad is reaching the end of the que and is about to be dropped off to the Archives, I see no problem with it being 'bumped'. It keeps the listing active and stops it being withdrawn from sale on the site. Makes the seller responsible for maintaining their ad.

But if the ad is only half way down the first page, yes, I do see it as not the best practice.

I understand the need to clean out older ads. Some people just forget to delete their ad once the item has sold, others don't give a damn.

I for one do post ads for services I provide, free services and for a fee. I've made these postings with Mike's approval too. But I have my own standards too, and I for one don't like to be seen as 'pushing' stuff, and I don't make a practice of bumping my own ads for the heck of it. To my own detriment I've had some of these ads fall of the end of the tree into the archives, . But when I do 'bump', it is because of an innovation I'm announcing, or because it is about to reach the very end of the que and fall off, but the service is still very much available.

To aggressively 'bump' is not good, I agree. To 'bump' thoughtfully is a different matter. The mods are aware of this too.