Quoted from robin:Update! It took me a bit longer than I had hoped for, due to some personal stuff coming up (more about that later), but today we're launching an update to the November update.
The most important reason for this update is to fix several annoying bugs in our Marketplace section. Some small validation bugs where generating huge problems for ending ads and even to getting to place stuff on the Market in the first place. Sorry about that!
What else has changed? I decided to drop the $2 forum placement fee. I felt this was conflicting too much with the Pinside mission. Initially, I thought it was a good idea (also because I think there were maybe too much ads cluttering up the forum frontpage) but in hindsight it wasn't. Discussing for sale ads is an important aspect of Pinside. Of course, it's still your own choice wether you want your ad on the forum or not.
I'm glad that the market sales fees, which we have introduced last week, has not lead to a decrease in ads at this time. In fact, we've received lots of support for this decision and even saw a slight increase on some days! We'll continue to monitor this. Obviously we don't want Pinside to go backward in terms of ad count
Let's see, what else is there. I have added an easy way to put a Marketplace ad "on hold": a button to mark it as sold pending. This way you won't have to edit your ad title etc. Simply click a button and your ad is marked as "sold pending". Click the button again to make it available again (i.e. if the sale fell through).
I made some adjustments to the UI in several places. Thanks for all the feedback about this. I'm always open to make changes so do not hesitate if you think stuff can be improved.
Okay what else... drumroll... The post voting system that Martijn and I cooked up has been retired after a week of service. It saw 3,038 votes and I'm sorry to those who have voted and whose votes are now rendered useless. It's a bit sad, we had great expectations, but after launching we quickly learnt that maybe it was a bit too much for this website. Too ambitious if you will. So that immediately makes you think: "what about the thumbs system". I'm gonna be very honest with you: I missed it too. And so I'm bringing it back, but in a slightly different form
But doesn't that mean we're gonna see thumb wars and all that negative crap again? Nope, not if I can help it. I have implemented some simple abuse detection to make sure people will not go on a downvoting frenzies against other Pinsiders. This is all *in beta*, so we might tweak this system as we go along in the coming weeks.
Some people indicated that they have no desire for any kind of thumbs/voting system on Pinside (yes I'm talking to you, mr Nate Shivers!) and for them I also have good news. Go to your forum settings and there you'll find a brand new option which allows you to switch to "thumbs up" mode only. Or even disable thumbs altogether, as some of you have requested.
Again, please note that bringing back the thumbs system is all in beta, we might change our minds, tweak it further, etc. Not sure yet but at this point in time this seemed like the best decision for Pinside.
Finally, if all is well, Paypal payments should now also be possible in our Market section. We had some trouble with our payment provider and this took some time to get fixed on their end. But it should work properly now, so sales fees and promo options can now also be paid using Paypal instead of creditcard/stripe.
If you have questions? Ask! I will still be a bit busy in the coming days with my personal matters, but Martijn and I will try our best to respond to questions or react to comments.
Great calls on the update to the update.
I felt that in losing the thumbs down Pinside had lost some of its soul, so bringing those back seems right, especially with the tweaks you've made.
Also glad to see that the $2 placement fee is gone.
As always, your great responsiveness to the community and to its "needs" is so appreciated.
Lawrence
