ATTENTION: CHANGES TO OVAS WEBSITE AND CLASSIFIEDS

[az]

not a sw/fw issue imo, most sw people here used tobe fw people also from here......

I like the idea of 3-5 free ads per year for non members.......I also think people who are doing it to make some money should be paying more than a $20 membership fee.

[bt]

not a sw/fw issue imo, most sw people here used tobe fw people also from here......

It shouldn't be, but a member of the exec just basically called the salties out and threw us under a bus...

I like the idea of 3-5 free ads per year for non members.......

I'd probably go a few more... 6-8 maybe?  But whatever, for the moment the concept is more important than the specific numbers.

I also think people who are doing it to make some money should be paying more than a $20 membership fee.

What about also limiting the regular paying members?  Give them a higher limit than the non-members of course (24/year?), but someone who wants more listings per year can pay for more - either a once per year charge for no limit, or a "bucket" of additional listings (which would be better IMO, but probably significantly more administrative overhead to manage the payments - possibly too much effort to be worth it).

[Fishnut]

Allow non-member posts to what end?  How will this help?

[bt]

Yes I have seen there have been attempts to have special saltwater speakers, and I am sure the turnout was fantastic

The turnout for Ret Talbot was almost all FW people.  I think there were 6-8 salties based on a show of hands that night, which was a little depressing.

I've posted about this before, but the club has tried to do SW stuff.  Not a whole lot, but that's understandable when the SW turnout is so poor on the few SW focused things the club does put on.  They tried for a frag swap at the annual garage sale - cancelled due to lack of interest.  They almost begged and pleaded for more salty stuff at the auction - and got practically nothing.  The aforementioned Ret Talbot talk was fantastic, but had single digit attendance by salties.

It's a nasty loop, unfortunately.  Salties don't show up, which leads to a lack of SW events.  Relative lack of SW events means salties don't show up.

[Darth]

I don't feel I translated anything it was at least to ME plain as day and the fact that posts are being deleted because the execs feel they are not proper, is just censorship and again if we can't speak what we feel, there was no abuse in what I said, nor foul language, why is it that an exec can have an opinion but when it is TRANSALTED into my own words, its wrong I didnt realize there was another way to translate you need your own club, should I have thought oh we need our own club, but yeah there was no other way to take that in my opion, but maybe I should say IN MY OPINION, but perhaps if what I took was misintererted, perhaps in trying to scold someone, you should try to clarify what was meant by that statement as I am not the only one who felt this way

[Darth]

The turnout for Ret Talbot was almost all FW people.  I think there were 6-8 salties based on a show of hands that night, which was a little depressing.

I've posted about this before, but the club has tried to do SW stuff.  Not a whole lot, but that's understandable when the SW turnout is so poor on the few SW focused things the club does put on.  They tried for a frag swap at the annual garage sale - cancelled due to lack of interest.  They almost begged and pleaded for more salty stuff at the auction - and got practically nothing.  The aforementioned Ret Talbot talk was fantastic, but had single digit attendance by salties.

It's a nasty loop, unfortunately.  Salties don't show up, which leads to a lack of SW events.  Relative lack of SW events means salties don't show up.

Yes I agree most of the saltys dont want to attend these events, and it was money not well spent, its sad that the turn out was so poor, and for that I say its our own fault, we shouldnt ask for things, have them done and then no one shows up to show support, bad form all around, but in spite of this I still stand by what I said

[bt]

Related aside:

I'm formally requesting that the moderators be less heavy-handed in this thread than they have been.  I fully understand removing posts with inflammatory language and have no issues with that continuing, but there have been several other posts that have disappeared that have spoken coherently and directly to several of the issues being brought up - namely: exec transparency, value of member feedback, and open dialogue.  Removing those posts is not going to make the issues discussed go away, it is instead going to make them worse.

[bt]

Allow non-member posts to what end?  How will this help?

Assuming you're referring to the classifieds, it will help by showing that the exec are actually willing to listen to feedback from members.  Public response from non-execs to this change has been nearly unanimously negative.  And it's reached the point where the club is losing at least 3 members - just from the people posting in this thread.  And all of the other benefits people have listed in here that have, on the surface, been ignored.

If you weren't referring to the classifieds, please clarify what you were referring to.

[Fishnut]

Assuming you're referring to the classifieds, it will help by showing that the exec are actually willing to listen to feedback from members.  Public response from non-execs to this change has been nearly unanimously negative.  

Although long, there are not that many participants in this thread.  

8 participants are non-members and all 8 don't like the changes
6 are members who do not like the changes
2 are members who DO like the changes
1 is a sponsor

This is not counting execs.

We have many more that 8 non-members and many more than 8 paid members.  It does not qualify (IMO) as "unanimously".  

[bergenm]

Although long, there are not that many participants in this thread.  It does not qualify (IMO) as "unanimously", especially since even fewer are actually members.

There are 1583 registered users on this site, at best maybe 150 of them are OVAS club members.

Out of the 150 club members, 70% (based on the last vote) are in favour of leaving the classifieds open.

That means 45 club members, or less than 3% of all users, support this change.

As long as they try to implement changes that 97% of the users disagree with, we are doomed to this continuous battle.

[Fishnut]

That vote was in Feb. and things have changed significantly since.  You can see that we can not propose everything to the online community when we, as the execs, all want to change something.  Not that many people will participate in the discussion.

[bt]

Yet even then, most of the members in this thread are either against the change or part of the exec.

I count 9 members outside of the execs involved in this decision posting in this thread.  Out of those, we've got 1 for the change, 1 who I think is for the change, and 7 against.  And one more member who was against it, but all of their posts in this thread have been deleted.

This is assuming that everyone other than me is properly flagged as a member or not.

Oh, and one sponsor who initially posted in favour of the change, and then quickly (about 17 minutes) moved to an alternative proposal that rests between the change and the current status-quo.

So yes, it's a relatively small number of members.  But the reaction from that small numbers has still been resoundingly negative.  80% negative!

[bergenm]

That vote was in Feb. and things have changed significantly since.  You can see that we can not propose everything to the online community when we, as the execs, all want to change something.  Not that many people will participate in the discussion.

I would be curious as to what has changed 'significantly'?

Considering this had already been voted on by the members, I think it is reasonable to expect any changes to be discussed prior to implementing them.

There seems to be no issue with people not wanting to discuss it now...

[Fishnut]

Here's the minutes from the meeting about it:

Classified Section Issues

Discussion on what to do with two members, ---------------------, who have repeatedly defied
the bumping and reposting rules.
A motion was put forward to give them both a 14-day "vacation" – all voted in favour.

More discussion followed about the amount of effort involved in policing the classified and
debate on the benefits to the club of retaining such a section.

Based on those discussions, it was proposed that:
  -The classified section will be offered to paid club members ONLY. This is to encourage
people to become members. Rationale discussed:
     -This policy would be consistent with a number of other clubs.
     -Although we expect much "trashing the exec" messages and the like from the "usual
suspects", the group felt it was time to make a stance on the issue.
     -The club has nothing to gain from making these sections free to everyone. There are
other public sites available for selling aquatic items.

  -Forum only members can still view the items for sale and PM the vendor but would not
be allowed to post.

  -The For Free/For Trade section would also be restricted to paid club members. The
rationale for this is that with the removal of privileges to non-members, there is a greater
likelihood of abuse (for example, stating an item is for free, but upon inquiring, people
are told there is a price – this has happened before)

  -The current bumping rules would stay as-is.

  -The limit of ads was increased to 5 active ads within a 30-day period.

  -Everyone voted in favour of the proposal.

  -An announcement is to be made in mid-August, with the new rules to be put into place
on September 1st.

Really, it boils down to two simple things...the use and abuse of the section, the website and therefore club resources has gotten out of control.

We will be making more of en effort to increase the value of being an OVAS member (bang for your buck).  This is one thing on a list of many improvements we want to make and it was the thing that is taking up way too much time to moderate, administer and discuss at exec meetings.  Imagine how much more we can accomplish now that we're not trying to decide how to handle all these website issues!!

[bergenm]

And what part of this qualifies as 'significant changes' - two members having a time-out or a person mis-representing an item as free?

I find it interesting as well, the reference to the 'usual suspects', good to see the exec holds our opinions in such high regards...

[bt]

The classified section will be offered to paid club members ONLY. This is to encourage people to become members.

Currently you're seeing a decrease in membership for it, before the change is actually even being enforced.  I hope for the sake of the club that there actually are people who will pay for a membership to post in the classifieds, but I doubt such a beast exists.

-This policy would be consistent with a number of other clubs.

So?  The current policy is also consistent with a number of other clubs.  And there are other clubs that have polcies that are yet different from either the current policy or the incoming policy we've got.  Some clubs don't have classifieds at all.

Just because someone else does it this way does not inherently mean we should follow suit.

-Although we expect much "trashing the exec" messages and the like from the "usual suspects", the group felt it was time to make a stance on the issue.

This just comes across as "we're doing what we want no matter what people say".  I doubt that's how you intended it, but that's definitely the message I'm getting from it.  It makes me believe that you've already made up your mind, and that you feel anyone against the change is just trying to stir up trouble.

-The club has nothing to gain from making these sections free to everyone. There are other public sites available for selling aquatic items.

The club gains web traffic.  Web traffic converts (yes, at a small percentage) to active people in the community, which in turn converts into members.

And as you say, there are other public sites for this stuff.  What in the world makes you think that anyone who wasn't going to buy a membership anyways will now do so instead of using one of the open alternatives?

-Forum only members can still view the items for sale and PM the vendor but would not be allowed to post.

Helps the minority of club members who sell stuff on the classifieds.

-The For Free/For Trade section would also be restricted to paid club members. The rationale for this is that with the removal of privileges to non-members, there is a greater likelihood of abuse (for example, stating an item is for free, but upon inquiring, people are told there is a price – this has happened before)

Fair.  You have to either close both, or close neither.  Closing only one wouldn't work.

-The current bumping rules would stay as-is.

Fair.

-The limit of ads was increased to 5 active ads within a 30-day period.

Okay, I guess.  Didn't realize this was an issue for any members.

We will be making more of en effort to increase the value of being an OVAS member (bang for your buck).

I, and other members, see it as decreasing the value of being a member.  I don't post in the classifieds - I buy from them.  Reducing the number of sellers is a negative to me as a club member.  A point that has been brought up numerous times, and has yet to be addressed.  There are at least 3 memberships no longer being bought over this change and (more importantly to me) how the exec has responded to the concerns over it.

Making an effort to increase the value of being a member is great - but this is not the way to do it.  This is making the website less useful to almost everyone in the long run, and that will only hurt the club.

[robt18]

A few quick points.

You aren't paying $20 to use the classifieds. It's $20 to be a part of the OVAS club. Club members get to post classifieds.

Exec unanimously voted to close the classifieds.

Sponsors have nothing to do with this.

Re: post about how many forum users there are vs. club members: about 80% of users are inactive/dormant accounts now. They will be purged eventually.

Someone posted something about Ret Talbot as well. I personally want to say how disappointed I was in that meeting. Ret was one of the best quality speakers I have seen in my life, his presentation was phenomenal, his material was excellent, everything was absolutely top-quality. We only had about 25 come out to it. Sorry, a little off topic, and I'm not sure how it fit in before, but I had to say it.

If everyone is this upset about the change, there must be a significant benefit to the ability to post in the classifieds. Maybe it's worthy of being one of many reasons to join the club.

The idea of letting non-members post a few ads a year is good on paper, however policing this is another huge job, which we are trying to avoid.

This has nothing to do AT ALL with fresh water and salt water. I don't care what you put in your glass box. If you're a member, you can sell it on here.

[robt18]

Reopened. Don't make me find a way around the swearing filter.

[bt]

You aren't paying $20 to use the classifieds. It's $20 to be a part of the OVAS club. Club members get to post classifieds.

For people who were members anyways?  You're right.

But if you think you'll sell more memberships due to this change, it effectively is $20 to post in the classifieds for those people that you're expecting will buy memberships.

Exec unanimously voted to close the classifieds.

And now the members (and yes, non-members) are discussing it.  Based on members participating in this thread, it's 8-2 against so far.

A unanimous result from the execs doesn't mean that it should just be accepted as the right course of action.

Edit: I will add that the impression I've gotten from the execs in this thread leads me to believe that there were several viewpoints that were not adequately represented (if at all).  I fully admit that without having been there that I can't say that for certain, but that is the impression that I'm getting.  I'm certainly not saying they were intentionally left out, just that they may have not been thought of by those present and thus not brought up.

Sponsors have nothing to do with this.

Good.

Re: post about how many forum users there are vs. club members: about 80% of users are inactive/dormant accounts now. They will be purged eventually.

Not surprising.  Par for the course for any website with user logins.

Someone posted something about Ret Talbot as well. I personally want to say how disappointed I was in that meeting. Ret was one of the best quality speakers I have seen in my life, his presentation was phenomenal, his material was excellent, everything was absolutely top-quality. We only had about 25 come out to it. Sorry, a little off topic, and I'm not sure how it fit in before, but I had to say it.

That was me, in response to another chain that got deleted.  I agree, though.  I'd go a lot further out of my way than I did to hear him talk again.

If everyone is this upset about the change, there must be a significant benefit to the ability to post in the classifieds. Maybe it's worthy of being one of many reasons to join the club.

I'm upset because it hurts me as a buyer.  And that will hurt me if I'm a member or not.

The idea of letting non-members post a few ads a year is good on paper, however policing this is another huge job, which we are trying to avoid.

Having it in the programming would really cut down on having to police it.  Such systems aren't difficult to put in place.  If there's nobody on the exec with both the time and programming skills to do it, I'm sure (as in 100%) there would have been volunteers .

This has nothing to do AT ALL with fresh water and salt water. I don't care what you put in your glass box. If you're a member, you can sell it on here.

Unfortunately, comments by another exec (since deleted) have indicated otherwise.  I am certainly willing to accept that it was the personal opinion of that exec though, and not the opinion of the execs as a whole.

[dpatte]

When I designed the first OVAS interactive website several years ago, I made a conscious decision to add open classifieds for two reasons:

1) To ensure that members of OVAS had a focused source for first pick of used items coming available for sale in the community.

I think everyone recognizes that this was effective, and allowed members to enhance their hobby in an effective manner using their own vehicle, the OVAS website.


2) To help build the club membership by building relationships to non-members.

I believe is the most important part of why I added free classified, and I have yet to hear anyone address this issue. If non-members post on the site, and OVAS members meet them in person to buy their items, this helps build a relationship between OVAS members and potential new members. The classified are our CLUB-SELLING tool, our community outreach. OVAS members can discuss the advantages of becoming a member to the community at large when they meet non-members in person, what happens at meetings, our get together's bbq, christmas parties, our auctions, our great speakers!

Very few people will walk off the street and drop into a meeting to buy a membership without first meeting a member in person and building some sort of trust relationship with them first outside of the club. The free classified are the TOOL by which relationships are built and new members are acquired. Without free classifieds, this tool is lost, and new membership will suffer.

When free classified where put on the site, the paid membership of the club jumped from 15 to 150 in 3 years, because we were finally going out an meeting in person new non-members, and that relationship-building was essential for club growth in this age of social media.


I will say what I said two years ago when the classified were closed. I am very disappointed. And the main reasons is that some did not understand the TWO REASONS that open classified where important for the growth of the club.


Finally, something I did not consider at the time, was that the exponential growth of the club when open classified were originally added to the website made our site so popular that it finally attracted sponsors to the site due to our high page-hit-count. So, though not planned, this also brought in more income for the club so we could enhance the meetings even more. It was plus all around.

But when open classifieds were dropped, the page hits of locals dropped significantly, and membership dropped at the next membership period 2011-2012.  The low membership you are seeing at this point is still the 2011-2012 membership, and I believe was caused by decisions made in 2010, from which we have yet to recover.

I'm not going to convince the executive of my opinions. Not even going to try. But these are my opinions, and as member, on my club website, I feel free to express them.