Open Letter to New FPGeeks

[dfo]

Dear New FpGeeks,

Please note that the daily bumping of your for-sale items clogs the new-post feed and does nothing to increase the sale of your pen. Viewers of this website can already find your item via the for-sale forum. Daily bumping hides content that is actually useful to the community.

Stay awhile and write a review or share your knowledge on the forums. This forum, like any other, is content driven.

kind regards,
DFO

[urushi4u]

[Jon Szanto]

To dfo:

I am completely behind you on this (the turning of FPG into a sales (primarily) site), as I have always been. However, if you were to do some searching you'd see this topic has come up a number of times. The owner of the domain/site has opted for a completely hands-off approach, and while those who are regular members here can voice their opinions, there is precisely nothing anyone can do to influence the more community-oriented nature and activities to flourish, except to contribute personally. Most of the sellers are just flogging their wares (in the last year or two) and don't give a rat's ass about the forum as a community. It is just a place for them to make bucks. I liked it better when the sales were primarily from regular members and you knew who you were dealing with. Now it's the tail wagging the dog and all you see on a daily basis is For Sale For Sale For Sale.

Not much to be done, but please know there are others who feel the same way.

Cheers,
Jon

[dfo]

Jon,
I replied to one of the threads months ago and I did not want to resurrect any disagreements. The increased sales of pens on the website is one thing, but the daily bumping of "products" is another issue that should be addressed. I doubt few of the individuals who only sell items on this forum will ever read this post, but I will rant about/towards them in the hope that they will read this post. Maybe this thread needs a bump?

DFO

[EricTheRed]

+1. I find it especially madening when a seller has a series of bumps over several months without lowering the price of the item he/she is selling. PLEASE lower the price or stop the mindless bumping in the name of humanity and a fundamental understanding of how the free market system works :-)

[TSherbs]

I don't care about this. Not much traffic here anyway.

[penwash]

While I agree that daily bumping of the sale pens are one of the problems, I do think that we have a larger one.

Mainly the absent of active discussions, not even ongoing discussions that should have generated enough traffic to balance the FS ones.

I am often pleasantly surprised when someone revived years old thread about something that is still relevant today, but those are few and far between.

So unless we collectively figure out a way to encourage active discussions, I think we're "condemning" ourselves to the ever-present daily bumps

[dfo]

My answer to the previous thread was a challenge to myself to be more proactive in adding reviews and responding to threads. I cannot force others to add content, but I can do it myself.

Apparently TSherbs thinks he doesn't care, but he cared enough to stop on by and add a response.

While I agree that daily bumping of the sale pens are one of the problems, I do think that we have a larger one.

Mainly the absent of active discussions, not even ongoing discussions that should have generated enough traffic to balance the FS ones.

I am often pleasantly surprised when someone revived years old thread about something that is still relevant today, but those are few and far between.

So unless we collectively figure out a way to encourage active discussions, I think we're "condemning" ourselves to the ever-present daily bumps

[penwash]

My answer to the previous thread was a challenge to myself to be more proactive in adding reviews and responding to threads. I cannot force others to add content, but I can do it myself.

Apparently TSherbs thinks he doesn't care, but he cared enough to stop on by and add a response.

And you know what, I will join you.
I have in the past try to come up with discussion topics, but there needs to be enough of us who are doing it for the initiative to work.

For instance:

If 7 of us commit to come up with, revive old threads, or respond to existing discussions once a week on different days, that means every day we have one live discussion that is not For Sale ad.

Sounds insignificant? True, but it's better than where we are today

The real question is, can we even do that much?

[migo984]

I'm genuinely a little puzzled by this 'open letter to new members' thread. When I dropped into FPG earlier today, after several days absence, the first c. 20 'What's New' posts were For Sale items bumped by OPs who were all longer-standing members. Not a new member For Sale post among them, until much further down the page. One or two older members are continually bumping their stagnant sales at the moment, which is equally as irritating to me as the same done by new members.

[grainweevil]

On a practical note regarding the New Posts being clogged with For Sale threads, I've taken going to the main Classifieds Board first, and double clicking on the speech bubble icon next to each sub-board to mark them all as read. That way, when you open the What's New page, all the ads are gone. Not sure how or if that'd work via mobile devices, but fwiw.

[SIR]

My answer to the previous thread was a challenge to myself to be more proactive in adding reviews and responding to threads. I cannot force others to add content, but I can do it myself.

Apparently TSherbs thinks he doesn't care, but he cared enough to stop on by and add a response.

And you know what, I will join you.
I have in the past try to come up with discussion topics, but there needs to be enough of us who are doing it for the initiative to work.

For instance:

If 7 of us commit to come up with, revive old threads, or respond to existing discussions once a week on different days, that means every day we have one live discussion that is not For Sale ad.

Sounds insignificant? True, but it's better than where we are today

The real question is, can we even do that much?

I have started looking further back through the threads, there are some good posts which seem to have simply burned out; but I wouldn't take it upon myself personally to go resurrecting them for the sake of it, though I might've been tempted in one or two cases.

I'm genuinely a little puzzled by this 'open letter to new members' thread. When I dropped into FPG earlier today, after several days absence, the first c. 20 'What's New' posts were For Sale items bumped by OPs who were all longer-standing members. Not a new member For Sale post among them, until much further down the page. One or two older members are continually bumping their stagnant sales at the moment, which is equally as irritating to me as the same done by new members.

Looks that way to me too, most folks understand that they are unlikely to get much interest if they are newbies, irrespective of post count. Sometimes I wonder if there are a few who have played the long game i.e. knowing they have something to sell but just registering, making a few posts, then waiting and coming back 9-12 months later to place their sale listing; lack of post count doesn't look as bad as being a fresh signup.

On a practical note regarding the New Posts being clogged with For Sale threads, I've taken going to the main Classifieds Board first, and double clicking on the speech bubble icon next to each sub-board to mark them all as read. That way, when you open the What's New page, all the ads are gone. Not sure how or if that'd work via mobile devices, but fwiw.

Good tip!!

+1. I find it especially madening when a seller has a series of bumps over several months without lowering the price of the item he/she is selling. PLEASE lower the price or stop the mindless bumping in the name of humanity and a fundamental understanding of how the free market system works :-)

All's fair in love, war, and capitalism... apparently.

[Pterodactylus]

Unfortunately itˋs tue on one side we are flooded with tons of (for me not interesting at all) sales threads on the other side we are really lacking informative interesting community content. And the latter is the really bad thing.

I always try to participate as actively as possible.

My personal interest shifted in time, I don´t hunt pens anymore, I enjoy what I have in my collection.
My remaining focus are vintage flex pens but in the last years I developed a very strong focus in art related stuff like sketching and drawing.
Unfortunately I seem to be quite alone with my art focus here which makes me a bit sad.
Even back in my FPN times there were always at least some members which shared the art focus.

To be honest, I consider to move on with my drawing/sketching stuff to another board, maybe deviantart or something similar. It just don´t feel good when nobody else shares your passion and getting the impression that you post only for yourself. (Has more to to with my personal focus and not so much with the board problems).

[TSherbs]

The loss of Dan's work on the website has hurt this board.

[Kaputnik]

While I agree that daily bumping of the sale pens are one of the problems, I do think that we have a larger one.

Mainly the absent of active discussions, not even ongoing discussions that should have generated enough traffic to balance the FS ones.

I am often pleasantly surprised when someone revived years old thread about something that is still relevant today, but those are few and far between.

So unless we collectively figure out a way to encourage active discussions, I think we're "condemning" ourselves to the ever-present daily bumps

I guess I don't know much about how forums work; I'd never even noticed that there was a new posts feed. I see it now, hiding up there on the upper left. But I'd just been skimming the forums list, seeing which ones had recent posts, and then skimming individual forums, looking for thread titles that seemed promising. So bumps for sales threads had just passed me by, as I never look at the for sale posts anyway.

But I agree that the main problem is overall content, and I don't have a solution there. Generally, I don't have that much to contribute myself, and people who know more than I do may not be interested in spending a lot of time on it. Presumably, the answer includes having a large number of active members, so that there isn't too much burden on a small group to keep things interesting. But how do you achieve that?

[dfo]

I enjoy your content.

Unfortunately itˋs tue on one side we are flooded with tons of (for me not interesting at all) sales threads on the other side we are really lacking informative interesting community content. And the latter is the really bad thing.

I always try to participate as actively as possible.

My personal interest shifted in time, I don´t hunt pens anymore, I enjoy what I have in my collection.
My remaining focus are vintage flex pens but in the last years I developed a very strong focus in art related stuff like sketching and drawing.
Unfortunately I seem to be quite alone with my art focus here which makes me a bit sad.
Even back in my FPN times there were always at least some members which shared the art focus.

To be honest, I consider to move on with my drawing/sketching stuff to another board, maybe deviantart or something similar. It just don´t feel good when nobody else shares your passion and getting the impression that you post only for yourself. (Has more to to with my personal focus and not so much with the board problems).

[C-J]

New member here; I joined last week. What types of posts would you like to see from us?

I come to these forums to learn and expand my horizons. I wish I could drop a ton of unique knowledge, but you're likely to be far better informed. I have some (in my estimation) pretty pens and I'm happy to take pictures and share my thoughts on them, but I fear that wouldn't really elevate the discussion.

[dfo]

Welcome CJ.
Share anything you like.

I have some (in my estimation) pretty pens and I'm happy to take pictures and share my thoughts on them, but I fear that wouldn't really elevate the discussion.

[carlos.q]

New member here; I joined last week. What types of posts would you like to see from us?
[…]
I have some (in my estimation) pretty pens and I'm happy to take pictures and share my thoughts on them, but I fear that wouldn't really elevate the discussion.

You’d be surprised how pictures of pretty pens makes us happy.

[Farmboy]

There is a For Sale forum?