There should be a way to put vendors on IGNORE

 

What some seem to be missing here is that it is called ADVERTISING. You know, where a vendor pays their money to the owners of the website. Let me think now, what could that possibly do? Hmmm. I got it! It allows the complainers to read and comment on this forum for free!

 

They can sell their products and display prices on the correct thread like the rest of us

 

Are you really that naive? My God. Is it your contention that the advertisers have access to the website and THEY decide where their spots are placed? Or does it make more sense that IB offers various packages and the vendors make their decisions based on that? The vendors pay their money for EXPOSURE. Why would anyone in their right mind pay thousands and thousands of dollars if they are going to be relegated to some obscure section of the site simply because it annoys people who access this site for FREE? When you start contributing monetarily like the vendors then you will have a say in matters.

 

Arbee,
I do understand that the ads keep the forum wheels turning. Since you seem to be knowledgeable on the cost of forum advertising, how about sharing that information with all of us ignorant freeloaders?

 

I know the truth hurts some egos but don't be so ignorant to the facts. Are you suggesting that I have information regarding IB advertising rates? If you are that interested, contact IB YOURSELF and ask about advertising. Doing that for you is not in my scope. Can you imagine IB sending out an email to all the advertisers saying "A few members of C4 General that pay nothing are annoyed at the placement of your add so we are complying my sending all your exposure to the back room". Frightening how some people think their worth is far more than what reality dictates. As the old saying goes, "The man with the gold makes the rules". Sorry you have difficulty with that reality.

 

It is more in the Spam catagory. what if Autozone wanted to put a sign on your living room wall?

 

Totally acceptable if they agreed to my terms and paid me money.(as all vendors do here) My neighbor would have no say in the matter - he just gets to look at the sign through my picture window for free. He could **** and moan all he likes and complain to me that he wants me to hang it in a hall closet instead because it interferes with his viewing of my other pictures.(he may even try soliciting other neighbors who think they may have a say in what I do in my own home.) Exactly the scenario that happens on these web forums. Not quite sure why that concept is so difficult to understand.

 

It is hard because if I were to post a for sell in general with no price CF would inform me that I need a price per the rules, and would move the post to FOR SELL. Why are the having two standards?

 

There is no two standards! The two scenarios are not equivalent.I will try this one more time and then I give up. There is an exchange of services. In the vendors case, they pay money and IB takes their money and places their adds wherever they choose. On one side, IB gets money and on the other side, the vendor gets exposure for their product. That is called a contract. In your case, you need to abide by whatever stipulations IB says. You are getting this for free. IB gets nothing from you in return. If that is not obvious, then I don't know what else to say other than you don't know how business operates. Suppose you are at a ball game and sitting in seats that you paid for. The ball park gets your money and in return, you get the use of that particular seat for the duration of the game. Suddenly some dude that snuck in for free walks up to you and says he wants YOUR seats because the sun is in his eyes where he is sitting. You going to give him your seat? Would that be two standards in your mind? In your case, you have a contract and there was an exchange engaged in. In the freebees case, he sees the game for free and the ballpark got nothing.

 

OK good then I can post my for sale items in tech and performance? I'll get right to it. I'm out

 

Ron White has no idea how correct he was.

 

The smarter you get the dumber you reaize you were. If you let them post on all forum catagories the less you need multi categories. Think about it.

 

For anyone interested, they are operating within the forum rules expressed both HERE and HERE. But god forbid someone reads those. I don't particularly care either way but the rules are pretty clearly written out.

 

I thought you were "outta here"? Stop punching yourself in the nuts dude. You are making yourself more silly with each post.

 

I think an important point needs to be made:
the vendors are absolutely working within the rules as outlined. They are absolutely engaging in a consensual exchange of money for services.

That doesn't mean that we as as users of the forum can't be upset or prefer that the vendors NOT engage in what they are doing.

I spoke to this in a post earlier up ahead, and the idea applies to ANY medium or situation where a "free" good is circulated but is funded and paid for by advertising revenue.

Consider a free newspaper. Why do advertisers pay to have their advertisements in the paper? Why because the paper has readers of course. Now why does the paper have readers? Well not for the advertisements of course. They read the paper for the actual content of interest. Now consider a silly, borderline stupid, short-sighted management staff of the newspaper. They want to make more money in the short run, and aren't concerned about their long term profits or longevity of their business. So they start selling more advertising spots in the paper, and reduce the useful information density of the paper. Readers of the paper now have to fight and flip through more pages to find the actual content they want. Real articles are harder to find, and harder to read, being interrupted and interspersed with more and more advertisements.
At a certain tipping point readers of the paper will eventually just stop picking the paper up. It isn't worth their time. There are TOO many advertisements and their placement is TOO detrimental to the actual goal of the reader, which isn't to see advertisements but to read the rest of the paper. Now the paper loses readership, and tbe advertisement spots are no longer valuable to sell.

So the paper goes under.....


Get it?

That is my complaint with the vendors. I get that this paper is free. I get that the vendors PAY to have their advertising spots. I don't like it though, and obviously others don't either, and that isn't to say there can't be ANY advertisements... but the CF management would be wise IMO to listen to the complaints here. The amount of advertisements and the current placement, the balance of real posts and information vs advertisements is NOT good IMO and more worrisome IMO is the TREND of this.

$0.02

 

Agree mostly with you except for one thing. Your scenario of people not liking too many advertisements in newspapers is missing one crucial point. People BUY newspapers. That entitles them to a say in matters. They will "protest" with their coins. People who get something for free have no say. Very simple.

 

Two points I'll add:
1) It would be nice it the price was required in the vendor posts. I get that not putting the price in the post generates traffic on their site via the link in their post but I find it irritating. (Specifically if there is an error in the link that doesn't land you to what they are advertising, which is fairly common.)
2) The constant posts everywhere instead of in the vendor section potentially works against them. Not because of the reasons already mentioned but because it is difficult to find their stuff efficiently later. I remember one of the vendors posting something recently that I'm potentially interested in now. It isn't in the vendor for sale section so must be scattered in C4 tech, general, or the member parts for sale sections. I'm simply not wasting my time trying to find their post to purchase said item from them. The method of "spamming" every other section has actually lost them a sale at this point simply because I cannot find the original post.

 

If I may,

My analogy to newspapers did specify free papers, free rags. These papers do exist and the mechanism by which they obtain and maintain readership, and profit from said readership, is IMO nearly perfectly analogous to what we have here with Corvette Forum. Additionally, the notion that the readership can only protest with their "coin" is missing a particular perspective, that our TRAFFIC on this website is precisely our "coin", our buying power here.

As I explained, if it becomes too difficult to get the main thing we all come here for, which is NOT advertisements, then we will go elsewhere. Facebook groups for example. If we go elsewhere, then traffic declines. We have "voted" with our "coin" which in this case is our traffic and contributions. With declining traffic, the vendors that once paid to spam the forum and then chased members away, will not longer see it as a good value to pay to advertise, and so they won't.

 

Well, all I got left is this. For those that feel "free", entitles them to a seat at the table, instead of P and M'ing here, go on a tear. Start emailing everyone from IB and let them know that unless they start doing things your way, you're leaving. Post back to this thread in a month or two and let us know how you made out!



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