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Thread: "Likes" concept applied to the Classifieds?

  1. #1
    Brentrup Evangelist Larry S Sherman's Avatar
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    Default "Likes" concept applied to the Classifieds?

    Obviously this site is my favorite on the web, and I love it and think it works really well.

    An idea I've had for enhancement is to allow viewers of the classifieds to click "Like", or otherwise indicate that they like an ad. Classified viewers would see some sort of distinct count of "Likes" or "Thanks".

    For the sellers they would get an idea of how many people cared enough to click the button, and perhaps have an indicator of interest. This might help them to craft future ads to include pics, helpful descriptions, and other qualities that would lead to more "Likes" and hopefully a quick and satisfying sale of their item.

    Buyers might have a greater sense of urgency to make a purchase decision, because the item they are interested in may have 200 "likes" or "thanks" associated with it.

    Conversely, you might want to try to get a deal going for a "sleeper ad" that has little or no likes.

    Casual browsers would be able to inject their opinion by clicking the button, and might even be able to help a sale happen, at least tangentially. And it might be nice to click "like" on a mandolin you think is beautiful or perhaps owned by a friend.

    Another idea would be able to sort the classifieds by this new "like-count". This could be the "Hot" category, and would be a ranking of ads by like regardless of category.

    This feature might discourage people from constantly deleting and re-adding their ad to try to get to the top, since older ads would be ranked higher by like count, and it would be another way of highlighting older ads.

    This idea is simply a value-add....nothing crucial. I hope that it would make this site even cooler than it already is.

    Best, Larry

  2. #2
    Site founder Scott Tichenor's Avatar
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    Default Re: "Likes" concept applied to the Classifieds?

    Larry, I think there's merit to your idea. To make it work though it'd require an overhaul of the Classifieds that would bring on other issues and challenges for users.

    One of the things Dan and I have both felt strongly about in managing the Classifieds and continual altering of the coding is that we don't require membership or a login in order to place or reply to ads--no special cookie, in other words. We think that's a great part of the successful use. Make no mistake, there's serious screening going on here to protect buyers and sellers, but that is handled minus a login and cookie and has been in place successfully for years.

    A cookie or login would be needed to keep people from abusing the system or one person simply hitting a Like button over and over. The reason we can have Facebook and Twitter likes is that those people have logins to those resources so the clicks are controlled.

    Financial profiting can bring undesirable actions so I'd be concerned about people looking at ways of loading up ads with Likes for the purpose of influencing others.

    So, if that sounds like no that's probably the case but I'd glad to hear the idea. I'll share with Dan next time we chat. That's the bad news. The good news is Dan is working on some enhancements to the Classifieds this coming week we're hoping to implement soon. There are other changes afoot as well longer-term. I hate to make promises before the work gets done because it's possible to run into snags we hadn't anticipated, so I won't.

    Thanks, I appreciate the thoughtful input.

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  4. #3
    Brentrup Evangelist Larry S Sherman's Avatar
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    Default Re: "Likes" concept applied to the Classifieds?

    Hi Scott,

    Thanks, your answer makes sense. Thanks for giving it some thought.

    I anticipated the login limitation, but thought that the distinct count could be based on ip address. Yes, you could abuse this by using a VPN, or when traveling, voting once from home and once from work, etc.

    Another possibility would be requiring login for voting, but not for posting classified ads. In other words, you would need to be logged in to see the voting button.

    In any case, thanks for reading and for all you do and have done for us mandolin geeks!

    Best, Larry

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