I'd love to see some kind of separation by country/region in the Buy & Sell forums. I hardly consul those forums even though I'd like to, because it's very hard for me to browse through these forums and find things I can buy. The vast majority of buyers/sellers come from Malaysia and Singapore and are looking for trades in their region, and even if those people were willing to ship to other countries, shipping fees would usually make it not worth it. So, maybe something like: Buy & Sell - Africa - Asia - Australia - Europe - North America - South America - International (for people selling/buying from anywhere) And then, in the threads, people would have to specify a country code, ex: [USA], [MY], [DAN], etc to make it easier to sort.
I just realized that this suggestion has been posted like 10 times just in the first two pages of threads, so I'm sorry about that and not using the search function :\ However, I'd still like to know if this is something that you guys want to implement or if it is something not worth doing/that would be too much trouble. Thanks!
yan.v, the protocol is supposed to be that you identify your location -- or the location in which you are willing to deal -- in the title of the thread. For example : FS: Yoneeks Femtofart 2000 (SG) or WTB: Vickster MX-93.5 (Can-US) That should solve most of the problem. Unfortunately like all things human, it is not perfect.
Lol I like your racket names! And I know that locations usually appear in the thread titles, however not everyone puts the location in the title (to get more views I suppose ?). Another problem is that there are so many threads for Asian countries that other threads get burried very very fast!
again. badmintoncentral is for all badminton lovers talk about badminton topics. sharing views is what we want. buy and sell is just a side add on for us to "exchange" rackets to play. there are so many other specialise buy/sell online out there.
It being a side add doesn't mean that it doesn't have to be good/improved though! However I definitely understand that by keeping it more simple and less compelling to use it kind of prevents the section to become the "main" trading medium for badminton, which may be something that BC does not want to become or may be too much trouble in the end.
if someone help us write up a concise and clear guide for posting in the Buy & Sell forum, we will be happy to adopt it.
Here's an idea, just something to base the system on. Everyone must use the following prefix for their thread, after the FS/WTB prefix, depending on the region they are willing to deal in: - Africa: [AF] - Asia: [AS] - Oceania [OC] - Europe [EU] - North America [NA] - South America [SA] - International [INT] Posters are free to add their preferred region after that. For instance: FS: [NA] Canada - GTA - Yonex ArcSaber 11 Here are the possibilities and their meaning: FS: [NA] Canada - GTA - Yonex ArcSaber 11: Arc11 for sale, dealing in GTA ONLY FS: [NA] Canada - Yonex ArcSaber 11: Arc11 for sale, dealing in Canada ONLY FS: [NA] Yonex ArcSaber 11: Arc11 for sale, dealing in ALL of North America ONLY FS: [INT] Yonex ArcSaber 11: Arc11 for sale, willing to ship worldwide So the format would always be: FS/WTB: [Continent] Country - Region - Item details The base principle is simple, the more detailed is the region prefix, the more restrained is your trading area. Less details means bigger area. If you put in less details, for instance only [EU], you HAVE to be able to deal with the whole of Europe. Since there would not be a specific section/subforum for each, users would have to use filters with wildcards and expressions, which I don't know if these forums can support it. But here's an example of filters, assuming * is a wild card for anything and OR is a keyword: All trades in North America: *[NA]* All trades available in North America: *[INT]* OR *[NA]* All trades in Canada: *Canada* All trades in GTA: *GTA* This formatting would provide a flexible way to filter things depending on what you are looking for, but would also make it a little more complex for the users since they would need to use more complex filters. So there would have to be a guide on how to make filters, or have some predefined filters at the beginning. There would also be an adaptation from the sellers, because for this system to work, everyone would have to do it the same way. Feedback, comments, ideas appreciated
That would definitely make the thread titles easier to read. However, it'd be harder for the users to see at first glance where the seller/buyer is at, say if I search for Canada just to see everything I might skip one that is selling something in my city. That's not too big of a deal though. It might also be harder for moderators to "impose" a rule that says "you must specify your region in your post" since they'd have to check out all the posts one by one. While answering this, I made a search in the buy and sell forums to see how the formatting would be and what shows up, and it took a long while (couple minutes) for the search results to appear (probably A LOT of threads to scan). I'm not sure if this would be an issue, but it does make my whole filtering idea a bit less effective :\
Another recent thread on this subject... http://www.badmintoncentral.com/for...398-Suggestion-Stop-New-Members-Selling-on-BC! On a related subject, I have been noticing a lot more advertising for obviously fake racquets -- not necessarily here on BC but on other sites like kijiji and craigslist. It appears that the market for fakes is rapidly expanding. Although the reputation of BC is not dependant in any way on who buys/sells on this forum, (and disclaimers are very clear on the responsibility issue) as enthusiasts and responsible human beings we'd like to see the fake menace controlled. Mods cannot do this, alone. Any suggestions for posting guidelines that might control this on BC?
^^ Other equipment forums/sites (eg. camera/lenses, audio, ebay) have buyer/seller ratings and I know this has been discussed before. This wouldn't be that hard to implement right? Other than the obvious legal implications, fine print, etc.
Yeah I think this would probably be the best solution... You could force the sellers to post pictures of specific parts of every racket they are selling, but in the end it would be easy for them to use other people's pics and send a fake racket.
As for the filtering, since we can't rely on the search function, I think the only solution left would be to create a section for every continent and maybe an international section and have people specify their region in their title. This would only partly make it better, but at least you have better chance of being able to find trades in your region on the first page.
With the new layout of BC, would it be possible to implement something similar to pinkbike.com's buy and sell section? You have a list of continents and you can pick which continent you are interested in buying from. You can leave it at that and browse through the items for sale or you can narrow it down into country within the continent. Within the country you could also select Province/State and depending how centralized some areas for buying and selling are, within a specific area. Check it out here: http://www.pinkbike.com/buysell/ For the items being listed for sale, you could have the categories for things like: a) Rackets b) Shuttlecocks c) Bags d) Shoes e) String They can all be subcategorized into their own correlating brands as well. A price range selection can also be implemented to ease the search for some people to find something within their budget. The seller can also list out if they only want to sell locally or if they are willing to ship locally/nationally/internationally and the buyer has the option to pick if they want to deal internationally and whatnot with the shipping costs. If people want to trade their items or want to sell and/or trade that can also be listed out. It seems to me that a lot of people find the buy and sell section on BC to be a little confusing especially those that aren't from countries which badminton is popular. Everytime I go on BC buy and sell, I usually see mostly Malaysia and Singapore rackets for sale and using the search function results in even more confusion. It may be a lot to implement buy I would hope to see the continent-country-province/state categorization put in place to make everyone's buying and selling a bit easier. Cheers!