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Those of you who caught a glimpse of our new classified system during our last trial know that we've been developing this system since late last year. The main developer for this system (not someone we hired) has been very flaky, so development has been slow.

On Monday I sent out our a conversation requesting feedback from our members, which began rolling in shortly after (thank you!). The initial (and subsequent) replies left no doubt that classified section improvements should be our top priority. Surprised by the number of people mentioning the classifieds, it's obvious we can't wait any longer for the developer. I'm no developer myself, but I believe the system is 'close enough' to being complete that we can make it work for us. I've spent around 40 hours since Monday working on getting this to the point where we could put it in front of you guys and get some feedback. This new system is something I've been looking forward to more than any other feature, so I'm pretty excited.

As I said, I'm no developer - I promise you there will be bugs! I can also guarantee you quite a bit of confusion, especially when we go to make the transition from our old system to the new one. To make things as easy as possible, we're going to be running the two systems in parallel, only deactivating the old system once the bulk of our members have begun using the new system. Feedback from those of you reluctant to switch are especially important. Of main importance with this new system is ease of use, so please keep that in mind. Also keep in mind that anything may change here as this is still very much in development. The point of opening this up to members is to consider new ideas.

The new classified system can be found at https://www.northwestfirearms.com/classifieds. When a new classified is created a new discussion thread is also created in the <broken link removed> section, located under the existing classified list. Once we make the transition to the new system threads will be posted in the appropriate section, we're only putting them all in one for now.

There are no limits on how many ads you can post, so please feel free to put the system through it's paces! All feedback is appreciated :)



KNOWN ISSUES
  1. The system lacks the ability to mark ads viewed/read. Titles remain in bold even after they're viewed.
  2. The bump system does not work. This is something the developer is going to have to tackle.
  3. Training. We need to make this as easy to use as possible!
  4. Members aren't able to change their ad status from pending to completed. Pending ads must be re-opened first, then marked completed.

NEW FEATURES

Ad Expiration


This feature should address a variety of complaints we've received over the years about people closing their ads, closed ads remaining on the classified list, receiving reminders for not closing classified ads, etc. For now we've set ads to expire every 7 days, at which time they can be renewed with the click of a button.

Ad States


Ads now have four states: Active, Pending, Complete, and Expired.
  • Active - Active ads are normal, open ads.
  • Pending - Members can now mark their ads as Pending, for situations where an item is tentatively sold but has not sold yet.
  • Complete - These ads are done (sold, traded, found, no longer wanted, etc). These cannot be re-opened.
  • Expired - As mentioned above, ads will now automatically expire after a certain amount of time (TBD). Expired ads can be renewed again with the click of a button.
Classified Self Moderation

Members can now moderate their own classified threads, deleting comments which they'd prefer weren't there. Adios threadcrappers!

Advanced Sort / Filter / Search System

The new sort and filter system is nice!

Sort based on:
  • Recently Bumped
  • Submission Date
  • Expire Date
  • Price
  • Views (popularity)
  • Advertiser's Name
  • Title (alphabetically)
Filter based on:
  • Ad Status
  • Ad Type (Sale, Trade, WTB)
  • State
Search based on:
  • Location
  • Ad Type(s)
  • Categories
Classified Conversation Metrics
  • Average Seller Response Time and % of Messages Replies are two new seller metrics which are generated when a member contacts a seller and that seller replies. A conversation tab is also added to the classified ad.

Featured Ads
  • At the top of each category is a section for featured ads, for members who'd like to contribute a bit of cash for extra exposure.

Vendor Designation
  • Ads from our Supporting Vendors will now be clearly marked on the classified list.
 
Last Edited:
Looks good so far. Will it be separated into different categories like it is on the old list: handgun, rifle, ammo etc?

Yep, added a few of the additional categories today. We'll evaluate which ones we need as we go.

Huge improvement! A great update!

Good to hear! Any specifics on likes/dislikes? Looking forward to hearing more feedback.
 
Good to hear! Any specifics on likes/dislikes? Looking forward to hearing more feedback.

I like the multiple options for searching, it makes it much easier to find what you are looking for. I also like that the posts expire after 7 days, it keeps the weeding through posts to minimum, but it also makes it harder to get a feel for what a firearm should be priced at if you are selling a gun, but have no real experience with that make/model/vintage ect.

the only question is will the forum be set up by type specific? rifle/pistol/shotgun forum, or one jumble for you to search through?
 
I like the multiple options for searching, it makes it much easier to find what you are looking for. I also like that the posts expire after 7 days, it keeps the weeding through posts to minimum, but it also makes it harder to get a feel for what a firearm should be priced at if you are selling a gun, but have no real experience with that make/model/vintage ect.

If you go into Filters you can select Expired or Closed to view historic information.

the only question is will the forum be set up by type specific? rifle/pistol/shotgun forum, or one jumble for you to search through?

Ads have two components, the ad in the classified system, and the discussion thread in the forum (the Overview and Discussion tabs switch between them). If you're viewing the overview and look at the sidebar you'll see the various categories, and you'll also see the forum categories of the old system. These two will match, so they'll all be sorted by type once we decide to make the switch.

The way the categories work in the classified system, ads from all subcategory are shown when viewing a category. For example, ads from all categories are shown on the main page. If you click the Firearms category it'll show all types of firearm ads.

Hope I explained that in an understandable way. This is far more complex than I want it to be, so refinement is needed here.
 
Hope I explained that in an understandable way. This is far more complex than I want it to be, so refinement is needed here.

took me a second, but I got it. It looks like it will be a much more user friendly and intuitive system once you bring it online.
I also like that you fill out a "form" while adding a post...if you're old like me, it helps you to remember all of the information that needs to be put on an ad for all of the prospective buyers.
 
Well, I'm pretty dense on this stuff but I posted an ad so I'll see how it plays. If I have a problem it will most likely be operator error.
 
Updated the look of the ads and got most of the pages optimized for mobile/tablet views ;)

Also formatted ads marked Pending: <broken link removed>
 
Are you working on a fix for posting pics from iOS devices? I'm not going to go purchase a PC so I can post pics here, I'll just be done with the site.
 
Are you working on a fix for posting pics from iOS devices? I'm not going to go purchase a PC so I can post pics here, I'll just be done with the site.

Absolutely. And just to be clear, it's only this new classified system that isn't allowing iOS photo uploads. We won't make the transition until it's fixed.
 

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