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General Category >> Marketplace >> Posting ads here
https://rbentonline.org/YaBB.pl?num=1240581521

Message started by Bud_Bent on Apr 24^th, 2009, 8:58am

Title: Posting ads here
Post by Bud_Bent on Apr 24^th, 2009, 8:58am

I get up early most mornings, and one of the first things I do is check the forum, and delete any spam ads that were posted overnight. This morning, though, I had to think twice about the ads from a new member that I found, because they were bicycle related. In the end, I deleted the ads because:

(1) One ad wasn't in the Marketplace forum.
(2) The ads, which were for a supposed bike store, didn't link to a legitimate store website (or any website, for that matter).
(3) The email addresses were all hotmail, gmail, and yahoo, rather than the kind of email address you would expect for a real store.

It got me to thinking that I probably need to post a sticky with guidelines and a disclaimer in the Marketplace forum, and there are several questions that arise. Even if this morning's poster was an upstanding store, do we want commercial advertising on the forum? If so, do we restrict the size of ads, or allow giant size ads like this morning's ads were? Do we only allow ads from store people that some of us know, stores in this area, or do we just ban all store ads?

My initial thought is that we don't want commercial ads at all. I like the setup we've had, where forum members post either their own stuff, or other stuff they think might interest members (store stuff they've seen, or links to ads in other places). But we do have some rbent friendly merchants in the area, and there are some real bargains to be found on online stores. I've used cheap hosting and free forum software, so we don't need money from advertising to support the forum. So do we ban all commercial ads? I'd like to hear other forum members' thoughts on this.

Title: Re: Posting ads here
Post by aikigreg on Apr 24^th, 2009, 9:35am

I personally prefer the clean look of the forum. the ads that BROL and bikeforums have slows the site down and I bet wastes enough bandwidth that would start draining your wallet, seeing that you don't charge for this great forum we have here.

I think a good alternative might be a sticky here where we can submit local shops and compile a profile on each one. I'd love to see great local shops such as City Cyclist get some attention, since they are extremely bent friendly and great to deal with. Otherwise, why spoil a good thing?

Title: Re: Posting ads here
Post by jman on Apr 24^th, 2009, 11:07am

aikigreg wrote:

[smiley=thumbup.gif]What he said ;).

Title: Re: Posting ads here
Post by evblazer on Apr 24^th, 2009, 3:48pm

Well this made me think of a question I've had for a while. If we embed using the img tags does that count against rbent's bandwidth or the site we embeded from (flickr, photobucket etc)?

As far as marketplace posts so far it has been us locals passing around goods or pointing out stuff on BROL that may find interest here. Paul had started a thread about bents on shop floors which is nice to have since they were so rare and sometimes something out of the ordinary might show up.

Banner ads and the like? *shrug* I don't know I can't say I have clicked on one in years regardless of what site I was visiting.

A shop sticky might be good. I know the two local shops near me both will work on Bents and one even has a couple sun ones. Then there is that cycling store out east that builds up those super rando wheels.

Title: Re: Posting ads here
Post by freakflyer9999 on Apr 24^th, 2009, 5:09pm

Some commercial ads can be useful, especially local ads. Of course most of the rbent members do a pretty good job of spreading the word about local vendors. I can always use Google to find the internet vendors. I did like Paul's thread about recumbents on local sales floors.

I would suggest a policy that requires all commercial ads to be approved by you.

Or just require that the commercial vendors pay $100,000 per ad per day posted. Then send them an invoice when they post it. We could have a really nice rbent picnic with Carbon Aero's for everyone as door prizes. [smiley=dankk2.gif]

Title: Re: Posting ads here
Post by freakflyer9999 on Apr 24^th, 2009, 5:14pm

aikigreg wrote:

I second that on City Cyclist. They really want to be the area's recumbent shop. Their new facility is great and they are extremely friendly. Just about everytime I drop by, Mike grabs a cup of coffee and sits down to chat.