Wow guys, these aren't random viagra ads or anything. These are ads for pinball products.

I imagine they will become more varied as more people use the shop to list items.

The shop is perfect for folks who only have a basic website and don't have a storefront or the know-how/interest to set up a storefront, especially if they only have a small handful of products. The shop will offer a lot more exposure to their wares, and people who normally wouldn't stumble upon their website might see their items here and find them useful.

I imagine that soon you'll be seeing NVRAM, LEDs, interesting mods made by other pinsiders, refurbished boards, board repair services, and various other items. So, as time goes on, the ads may become more relevant.

Pinside Plus donators have the option to disable them. Click the gear icon for forum settings and scroll down until you see this:

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It looks like Robin already made some adjustments based on the feedback so far, which should be pushed out shortly.

Specific constructive suggestions are helpful--thanks guys.

It helps differentiate them from classified ads in the marketplace.

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Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. We *are* listening and taking this feedback seriously. Robin will likely be making tweaks and adjustments over the next few days based on it.

Maybe there was a typo and shipping was supposed to be 3.95 instead of 13.95? Can you share which item it was?

Click the gear icon for forum settings and scroll down until you see the "Promotion box" section.

It's not the end of the world (or Pinside). Every change--and I mean *every* change is met with resistance on this site.

Robin is very receptive to feedback being posting in the announcement thread. There have been some good and specific suggestions that have been made so far. A few changes have been implemented already based on that feedback. A couple more will likely be implemented fairly quickly. A few others will likely be discussed a bit more to figure out what the best approach might be. So, I imagine we will see changes in the next few days based on the feedback everyone is providing.

For you specifically, the shop might be a good way to list your ramps for sale. They would then also show up in the ad strip, especially for threads where the relevant games are linked.

The thing is, this site is not just user-driven or developer-driven. It's both. Neither can exist without the other.

Pinside is a platform where folks can communicate, and in turn, the platform is constantly improved, developed, new features added, etc. That takes a considerable amount of time and effort.

RGP and Klov are other sites can be used to communicate, but those platforms are limited and fairly static. But some folks like it that way, which is fine.

Personally for me, I was originally drawn to Pinside because it had a good user interface and features, as well as good information from other members, and it was a very active place.

You're really selling yourself short here making huge world-ending complaints about minor features--features which have received changes and updates already in the past few hours as the result of calm, constructive feedback. Day 1 releases are always challenging, and I for one appreciate all the efforts that go into bringing new features to the site, as well as everyone who has taken the time to offer constructive feedback.

My primary browsing experience hasn't actually changed too much. A few new things have been added--that's all. Speaking for myself, I thought the ad strip would have been a great idea and well received when I first saw it. The ads are community driven--they're based on other members adding things to the site.

I'm always interested to see what other people are creating--adapters, mods, fixes, parts, ramps, replacement boards, etc. There is now so much of it out there and hidden away in various threads and scattered around on isolated stand-alone websites that they don't get a lot of exposure. This was to help folks to gain some more exposure and make it easier for them to sell and others to buy.

Two perfect examples that I've been following are barakandl's special solenoid fuse board for system 3-7 games, and acebathound's LED display board to replace the bad glass on bally/stern displays. Not everyone may have seen them in discussion threads. But stuff like that is what I would hope to see appear in the shop and in the ad strip. Whether or not they add their products to the shop is entirely up to them, but it's stuff from dedicated hobbyists like them that I would be glad to see.

Ok I took a look. There are actually two shipping prices--one for domestic US shipping, and one for international shipping. If you don't have a shipping address entered, it looks like it defaults to international. I left a note for Robin to take a look at this.

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If you use ebay to sell stuff, you've paid a commission fee.

The max fee in the marketplace is actually $35 ($26 if you donate), for games somewhere around $4500 or more...I forget exactly where the cutoff was for each tier.

For games with lower prices, the fee is less. Overall, the fee ends up being around a tenth of a percent (0.1%). A far better bargain than ebay's 10% seller's/commission fee , IMHO.

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It's just like an auction or consignment shop. You put the item up for sale, pay a small commission fee if it sells, or simply take it home if it doesn't.

I find external advertising annoying, intrusive, and sometimes a source for malware. Plus, it earns basically nothing these days, especially with everyone using ad blockers (because it's intrusive, annoying, and can be a source for malware). I'm not too keen on mandatory membership fees either that deny access to free users. Donating to the site here grants you a few extra perks and features, but otherwise, the site is basically fully accessible and free to use. The way the marketplace operates seems like a reasonable trade-off to me--no up-front cost, plenty of eyeballs looking at your ad, and only a couple bucks when a multi-thousand dollar game sells.

Yep, this has happened time and time again--from major well-known sites too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malvertising

Just recently:
https://www.engadget.com/2016/10/05/spotify-ads-briefly-served-malware-to-your-pc/
http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/11/google-stops-adsense-attack-that-forced-banking-trojan-on-android-phones/
https://www.extremetech.com/internet/220696-forbes-forces-readers-to-turn-off-ad-blockers-promptly-serves-malware
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/16/major-sites-new-york-times-bbc-ransomware-malvertising
https://blog.malwarebytes.com/threat-analysis/2016/01/msn-home-page-drops-more-malware-via-malvertising/
https://blog.malwarebytes.com/threat-analysis/2016/03/large-angler-malvertising-campaign-hits-top-publishers/

It's always a case-by-case basis.

Out of respect for designers who are not ready for a public reveal, and when something was obviously leaked without permission when the source looks like it came from a spy camera of some sort, then sometimes it's not appropriate.

One of our rules is "Be respectful of the industry". However....

As far as I'm aware, it's fair use for purposes such as criticism, comment, and news reporting, especially if it was released publicly by a primary source (as opposed to leaked trade secrets that could be potentially damaging).

Looks like it was fixed a few days ago. Or, are you still seeing it?

Ok, I'll let Robin know.

Someone else mentioned something about images showing up in their user profile that weren't his own, but he was very vague and never responded to requests for further information, so we weren't sure what he meant.

Could you open a moderator feedback thread and post some screenshots? I'll make sure robin sees it.

Just go to the moderator feedback subforum and create a thread. It should be fairly straight-forward.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/forum/moderator-feedback

I saw that robin posted that he was able to fix the issue. Thanks for reporting it, guys