It has arrived at last! Today we are debuting an updated and improved Community section, with emphasis on the key areas that we heard are most valuable to our customers. Here's a quick rundown of each:
Community Help. This is where you can post your questions about selling/Bonanza in a format that gets you a direct answer. This section uses the template of our Roundtable Questions, which promotes getting specific answers by virtue of voting up the answers that are relevant and pushing down the answers that aren't. We believe this will help buyers and sellers quickly get relevant answers to whatever burning questions you may have.
New on Bonanza. Here you will see new blog posts and updates about new features and such. Features that we launch from our "What's new" page will be noted here and it will also provide you with and area to ask questions about the new features and get direct answers from Bonanza. (We hope to be able to post short updates here more frequently than we did on the blog).
Deals and Promotions. This area will continue to be a promotional forum where you can talk about your booth, promote sales in your booth, announce new products, etc. We will have the same rule that you can post a total of 5 messages every 3 days maximum, so use your posts wisely! We have also made it so only the original poster can post to their own threads (this is to prevent the unfair advantage of bumping other users posts). We would like to also limit posts to promoting your own items in your own booth vs promoting another booth or service.
Fun and Games. This is the forum for all games and fun. Birthday threads, picture forums, price is right games, word find games, etc. Our goal for this forum is to keep it light and have fun.
As we make this transition, the old-style forums will be accessible in the short term, and will become deprecated in the coming weeks. We believe that our buyers and sellers will be better served by having a more focused community experience that is directly relevant to their Bonanza experience.
We welcome your input on the new layout! As with all things Bonanza, we know this won't be done until we refine it with your feedback.
It feels so confined….I’m glad I had the opportunity to be in the forums with the way that it was before, otherwise not having those lengthy discussions in “real time” like we had would not have taught me what I know today. I am feeling very discouraged about that part right there….like there’s no real time discussion. I am also glad I got to know other sellers when the forums were the way they were…I’m just not feeling like I can do the same now. It feels like “one question at a time” rather than “let’s talk about it.” I’m just being honest here.
I do like the area off to the right and like the idea of MGMT communicating with us, that part is great. Thank you for that.
Thanks for your comments TipTopMgr. Change can be unfamiliar at first but we would encourage you to hang in there. The new community pages have been live for less than an hour
Also we will refine the community pages based on feedback received from the community. So I would say to give it a go for a bit and lets revisit the feedback after you have had a few days to give it a whirl.
It seems that only threads that were formerly in the Roundtable carried over to Community Help, with the most recent from about 14 days ago. Are sellers still going to be able to ask questions about the site’s functionality / selling issues? I hope so, otherwise Bonz support would be swamped with questions from sellers.
As the Community Help pages are used, the new topics will populate that area. The great thing about the Community Help pages is that answers will be able to be voted up or down based on relevancy. So the days of searching through a forum thread for specific answers are behind us now. With this new format, you will be able to pinpoint the most popular answer for your Community Help questions.
I’m so happy with this company I have not sell anything yet because I’m new and I need to put my page in order but besides that I like the relationship with customer service with buyers and sellers, and the respect they treat you to me this company is going to be real big very soon and is up for us sellers to invite buyers .
I don’t mean to be unthankful, but Mark you all took out
introductions forum. you took out the sellers forum, and you took out the sales boosting and the general forum. you should of kept at least 1-2 of them. I really think you all made a big mistake here. Just my thoughts!
Thanks for your feedback normasbathandbody. We shall see how things go. Our hope is to remain helpful, positive, fun, and empowering (and a bunch of other great things). We are always listening to suggestions and feedback on how we can improve and we appreciate your input.
It always takes time to adjust to new. I think it looks pretty good overall.
Re: Is Community Help going to be kept in the RoundTable format? One answer per question per person, with seller reputation scores? That format which was developed for product identification with authentication links does not seem to lend itself to a community help forum. And the purpose of voting on a help page is???
Thank you The roundtable format will vote up the best answer to a question (voted by the community) so that is a plus for sure. Being able to just post once may be something that needs attention, then again, it may force users to post really good answers Thanks for the feedback MyTexasTreasures.
You should be able to visit a thread from the soon to be removed forum threads and suggest a reclassification. That way the whole thread will be moved over to the new forums. The Daily Smile thread sounds like a really good candidate for the “Fun & Games” forum.
I can get wordy in response to someone’s question, so sometimes I do not explain myself well and need a second chance to explain.
Likewise, I sometimes have a hard time understanding what someone is saying when I start a thread, which is really not uncommon since we are not face to face. I definitely would like for them to have a second chance to say what it is that they are trying to say to me. It would be hard to keep going back through the questions to see if anyone edited their post
I do not feel all topics belong in Fun & Games.
There are sellers here who are serious about their business, and if the only place to introduce is the Promote Booth, and the only place to get an answer is Roundtable, we have essentially blocked them from joining the community as a whole
The most recent tweets section was retired with the new design. However all items will still be tweeted and Twitter just enabled “Tweet pics!” Woo hoo!
Whoa Nellie! What sterile environment have we here? Very uninviting to say the least. To each his own I guess, but I will be spending time doing other things and not here in the new “forums”. Thumbs down I am afraid to say.
Where is the help now from fellow new sellers? The FAQs are not the same. Reading the forums has really helped me. Even though I am just getting started, I enjoyed reading the posts by others sellers. Now I just feel lost. I am rethinking selling here now. In my opinion it is wrong to change things so drastically. It is like you don’t even care about the sellers at all. Please change the forums back to the way they were. If I am missing something here, please enlighten me.
The “Community Help” page should serve for helping all sellers. The difference is that when you view a thread now, the most popular answer for that question (voted on by the community) will rise to the top. So you can get the best answer first, then if you want you can read all the other answers too If you have specific feedback on how we can improve the new community pages, please do share.
I really think there needs to be a separate and distinct forum that seems to be lacking – one specifically for sellers to ask “how-to” or best practices kinds of questions. I further think that forum needs to be set up in such a way that one can easily see what questions might have been asked in the past, rather than necessarily start a new thread. There are often several ways to handle a question, and there should be ample time for many people to weigh in on how they have handled the situation in the past. We have for so long relied on the expertise of more experienced sellers, and that was most helpful to us. (It also obviated the necessity for management to hire several people whose whole job was to answer those questions on a one-to-one basis.)
Great feedback Carolyn! I especially like the idea for viewing questions have been asked in the past. Adding to that, it would be really neat if when you typed in a title into a new question field that we returned relevant results for topics that have already been created. That would prevent double ups.
Simple solution. Change Community Help from the roundtable forum, eliminate the ‘vote’, one answer per person, & reputation (which is really not necessary but distracting) and put it in a format like the others. Then you have three viable forums. A win/win
I’ll be honest, I hate these type of “help” boards. In all the ones I’ve ever seen they are cold, full of trolls and completely unhelpful. There is no sense of community in something like this, as there are in DISCUSSION boards.
Speaking of, the Sellers forum was a huge help to lots of sellers, including myself. There were questions asked, but also just discussions on how to improve one’s booth. I posted the email about Google Checkout being discontinued yesterday, and that’s not a “question” I can post to the new rating system, is it?
Sigh. It’s not our site though. We are just permitted to use it. This just won’t be a section I use anymore.
There seems to be a lot missing on the new look of things.
No Introduce your self, no place for sellers to ask questions, No personal, many of the old pages are gone, what about the threads where many sellers contributed to helping newbies ?
Like all of these links to threads I have for newbies.
what every Newbie needs to know Here are some Very Important things you should know to help you get started as well as to help increase the opportunities for making sales
If you would like to learn how to post a photo from your booth,or any other image, posting it on this forum.
Please visit this step by step tutorial with screenshots I have written. It will also show you how to post a clickable image to your booth. http://www.bonanza.com/forums/7/topics/132648
Is your Booth “Dressed For Success”? Avatars, Banners, Panels, and more!
I’m looking for a thread that has been running all year—it’s called : What Do You Sell in 2013 . It was in Sales and people listed what they’d sold and for how much. Very helpful.
I don’t mind change however I never used the round table so I am clueless on all of this, I think this will push me to stay in my booth and work on it and not go to the forums. So maybe this will be good for me jmho
Although it is new, IMO, I do believe you have given many, many sellers, as well as new browsers,a lot more time to do other things with their time rather then spending it enjoying the camaraderie with many old, as well as new friends.
I also believe this change robs the new members of the
opportunity to learn so much about selling and promoting their Booth from the very knowledgeable and giving on what was once a very informative, enjoyable, and active forum.
I know I will have many more hours to pursue other endeavors.
Hmmmm … not sure on how I feel about the ‘new’ forum areas. I used to use the Sellers Discussions quite a bit. Or is that now included in the Community Help section?
I enjoyed browsing the forums in the morning while I had my coffee, and jumping into a discussion once in a while. And I’d often learn something new in the process, and I’ve made a few friends. I’m gonna miss that…
I’m confused! I created a game for the Birthday lists but I don’t see how anything can be posted. How can we play if we can’t make posts? So I decided to read the Games FAQ but it appears that there is a link but it doesn’t take you anywhere. Please tell us how the games section works. I can’t post tomorrow’s b-days without some instruction.
When you open the games forum you will see an area to create a new topic. Just beside the title is a “Register” link. Click that to register your new game.
There is no place to keep up with what is happening with people..I am not talking about Drama but what about the Tornado stricken Bonz sellers and stuff like that DO NOT belong in FUN AND GAMES!!!!
OH!!! I went to start the DAILY SMILE in the Fun and Games does not pertain to any game and the title changes from day to day? I am not sure what to do now is sad that you are making the forums worse.
If you have a new game, just click on the “Register” link beside the title field. If you continue to have trouble, please contact us at support so we can assist.
I don’t know about this new format.
It does not have that Community Feel to it any more.
The General and Sellers forums really do need to be here. Those 2 forums gave us the chance to get to know the other sellers and a few buyers. The wealth of information that some of the other sellers would freely give was Priceless.
In my opinion, I think you left to much on the cutting room floor on this one.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Kevin
My two personal favorite sections have been the fun and games and personal. Now personal is gone. Half the fun of community is now gone. This layout seems rather cold and uninviting compared to the old layout.
2. Not sure about the format of Community Help…as someone said…if one can only post once…there is no opportunity for the inquirer to get clarification on answers one doesn’t quite understand, except by maybe b-mailing them
3. Still do not see the purpose in the Who’s Around or Say Hello To….this would seem a good area for basic chit chat for those who like visiting with the community, seller’s questions, introduce yourself
4. I do like the blog section being more noticable
Thank you nutz4bookznstuff. Replies to your comments/questions:
1) Thank you.
2) The community will vote up the best answers as will the original poster. I believe that the original poster and the responder can edit their posts too.
3) New users receive many welcomes and great information from being in the “Say Hello to.” Showing who’s around also helps to show you who is active on Bonanza at the moment.
4) Thank you, we do too
Not sure about this moderator approval…too easy to cut and paste and weed out any negative comments…makes one feel they are just getting what the gov wants them to know
That is definitely one way to look at it. The flip side is that we can keep the discussion constructive and moving in a positive direction. The comments that do not make it to our blog are comments that add no value to the discussion (meaning that the comments detract from the discussion at hand).
really, really going to miss this. Like the others I looked at the forum while drinking coffee. I learned a lot from the members who took the time to post….made several friends that I would like to keep up with.
This is a great opportunity to keep that spirit alive and promote your business at the same time. You can create an booth that is attractive to other users to visit. In addition to having an open discussion with your friends on your booth chat window, you will have potential buyers at your booth.
It’s not clear to many folks how to get to the forums now. Using the “old way” of hovering over “Community”, it appears that all the forums have disappeared, since one has to actual click on “Community” to get there. If one doesn’t read the blog, then that impression is reinforced. How about reinstating that old way of hovering to get to the forums and/or how about an email to all users, explaining the change? Seems important to me, especially if one can’t get to the forums to find out where the forums are!
The problem I see on the forums, I will have to go back and forth to a forum thread to see if anyone responds on it a 2nd time, in other words I posted a reply in the forums and got an answer via support later and tried to post my reply however I have to reply on my first post, how many people will go back and see what others might reply back on something they posted earlier, very confusing
Mark, you responded above that the Community Help section would be the best fit for seller discussions. However, having that section in the round table format does not allow for an actual “discussion”. The promo section is restricted to posting only by the OP, so the only section where an actual discussion can happen is fun and games. If, as you say, the forums are not used much by the average buyer, but by sellers and sellers that are also buyers, then you have removed nearly everything that was beneficial to them. Hoping this decision will be revisited, because the sense of community was always an important part of the experience here, and that is gone with this limited and sterile format. Please reconsider.
You are correct Silkworm. The new community pages are going to take some getting used to even for me The question and answer format definitely serves specific questions best. I think a personal discussion would be best served via Bmail. A general discussion would be a good fit for your booth chat box. That is a really good area for friends getting together to chat and there is no limit to how many can converse. Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback.
Is there any place at all where the community can engage in general chit-chat?
I think a lot of members are really going to miss this and may not be on-site nearly as much as they once were due to lack of interest.
Couldn’t there be an area for this maybe between the Fun & Games and Who’s Around or before Fun & Games by making each of those showing a few less on page.
This would allow those who wish to socialize the opportunity while those who don’t the option to ignore that section entirely just as they may the Fun & Games.
Similar to the above reply, general chit-chat would be a good fit for your booth chat box. That is a really good area for friends getting together to chat and there is no limit to how many can converse. We are also wide open for feedback on how we can make it better and stay within our goals for a positive and upbeat introduction to Bonanza for new users, provide a place to swap tips on how to maximize selling effectiveness, provide a free opportunity to promote your booth and a location to keep users up-to-date on what’s new on Bonanza.
The problem with b-mail as a solution to chit chat is it is only between two parties and booth chat works only if one is aware that a discussion they may wish to partake in is happening
Could there not be a social forum that would only be visible to members as it was done for drama. Maybe this could be assessible from one’s profile or “My Bonanza” page where it would not be on the forum/community page at all.
For now I think the best solution is to use Bmail for personal chit chat, and booth chat for a community discussion. I actually see this as a really good opportunity for Bonanza sellers to create booths that have a thriving community within. Create an environment that is attractive to other users to come to your booth. In addition to having a community chit chat, you will have potential buyers at your booth. Bonanza sellers have always done a great job about customizing Bonanza in a way that benefits their business. We are excited to see sellers taking advantage of this opportunity.
I thought for certain I was on the wrong website or something and the new look is a bit confusing to me. I’m not so sure I like the “roundtable” style for the questions now because I learned a LOT from reading various discussions back and forth between OP and all others who commented. I’m so glad that I joined when this site was still Bonanzle and for all the friends I made during that time and all of the valuable things I learned. I’m not so sure that this new experience will be so enlightening. (sigh)
Thank you for your feedback and for giving the new pages a try. Keep us posted on any specific improvements that you would like to see on the new community pages.
Mark said “A general discussion would be a good fit for your booth chat box. That is a really good area for friends getting together to chat and there is no limit to how many can converse.”
While this may be true, We met our friends in the community forum. We can certainly carry our current friends to our booth, but what about continually meeting NEW FRIENDS? and how will new users find us?
I think inviting users to booth chat promotes “clicks” and not a widespread community.
Good question princessgifts7. It will be fun to see what kind of ideas sellers come up with to get new users to their booth (and how they convert this to business/fun). We have many tools and communication options for buyers and sellers. This would be a good time to look at those tools with a different lens and see how they can help you gain those new users. This would be a good question for the “Community Help” pages (ie, How can I use my booth chat window to maximize sales, etc?).
Well, having read through all of the comments, it would appear that there is a common thread. This new format pretty much destroys the sense of community that made Bonanza so special.
Suggesting that booth chat is the place to have seller discussions doesn’t take into account the fact that others who might have participated in the conversation and helped find a solution if one was needed certainly can’t do so if they don’t know the conversation is going on. It also doesn’t take into account that when a lot of people are talking in booth chat and conversations are long, chat freaks out and freezes up and you have to keep clearing it, which means that you lose the continuity of the conversation.
The roundtable format is bad for many reasons, not the least of which is the inability to have an actual discussion. The voting comments up or down that you seem very fond of is actually a bad idea. I’ve seen many instances in the roundtable when wrong identifications or bad information have been promoted to the top simply because the information is presented in an intelligent fashion. Sort of “He/she sounds smart, so he/she MUST know what he/she is talking about”.
Selling online is a hard and lonely business. The community aspect of Bonanza is what made me settle in and stay for so long. I made friends, I was able to build a support system, and I knew that someone would be around in the forums to help me if I needed it, 24/7. Can’t you give us at least ONE forum that preserves that nurturing, friendly environment?
I think the voting up may be okay in terms of finding the most helpful answer. I do think though, that the rest of the Round Table format doesn’t really work. As mentioned above, sometimes a person wants clarification of a previous post. It needs to be a threaded discussion to be sure no info gets missed, such as when a poster comes back to add more info. One cannot re-read the whole thread every time, just to see if anyone added a sentence to their previous post.
Otherwise, I like having way less forums.
I think all Personal stuff should be in the Fun & Games, but maybe the title could be changed, since obviously, tornadoes, etc., are not ‘fun’.
Can previous posts be brought into the new forum, or should we re-start useful ones such as the previously mentioned ’What have you sold in 2013?"
“Can previous posts be brought into the new forum, or should we re-start useful ones such as the previously mentioned ’What have you sold in 2013?”
A. You should be able to reclassify a post to the new forums provided that is an option. Another idea would be to “edit” your original post and copy and paste the text into a relevant category on Bonanza.
Okay, I just spent around half an hour poking around community. And this is my feeling about it. It does not feel like a community like it used to feel. I understand what you are trying to say about people coming into each others booths and chatting there, and it seems like a good idea on paper. But will people actually do that? I think not. It is much easier to go to community for bringing people together than it is to go to another’s booth. I strongly urge you to put in the personal section of community. That section is what really held Bonanza together. Without it Bonanza won’t feel as warm and inviting. What I see myself doing in the future with this setup is maybe looking at The Daily Smile and playing a game or two now and then and that’s it.
I hope we can keep the forum I started. It’s called, What have you sold in 2013? I have many followers and contributors with priceless information on what to look for when going to garage and estate sales.
I’d agree that you provided an encouraging and positive activity for people to participate in, and we’d like to preserve that. In the next couple weeks we’re going to be fleshing out the Community Help section pretty rapidly, and I think you’ll find that that section will allow you to carry on your thread, albeit you’ll apply some creativity to adapt the format. Stick with us as we beef up the Community Help area, and be creative!
1. For the Bonanza Community Help section, will there eventually be many pages to scroll through, or will it be limited to one page? Will posts have some sort of time limit before they then “fall off”?
2. Will a post such as the “What Have You Sold in 2013?” be allowed in the Bonanza Community Help section? (It would *seem to fit since it serves to help the Bonanza community.) If it would be allowed, is there a limit to the number of times one’s post can be updated?
1. Absolutely. And a souped up search box as well, so that information becomes much easier to find than it ever was with the forums
2. See answer above. I think that Community Help will be the place for a discussion like this one, especially as we add a couple more bells and whistles to it in the coming weeks.
Mark you mentioned a good place for chat was in the games, but when you go to create a new thread, it wants you to link to a game. What if you want to say something to everyone, and it isn’t a game and it isn’t something for a round table discussion. Like If I wanted to let folks know how to do something like post an image in a thread, or find how to add attributes to their listings. Those are not round table discussions or games.
Posting an image in a thread or adding attributes to a listing are ideal candidates to be put into the Community Help section. Plus, over time, if the Q&A you create is valuable to others, you’ll build up reputation and get actual recognition for the work you do to make the site easier for others to use.
At least you could give a General Discussions thread where folks can communicate with everyone since they won’t all know to look in your booth chat.
This format is too stark, and you all did not use any of the suggestions when you were asking for them before you decided to change the forum. You asked for suggestions and even indicated that some of the suggestions would be used or given serious thought. It looks like you were not really wanting suggestions, but looking for a way to tell everyone that the forum would not be there, Just games and a round table.
What about it, give us a General Discussions place. Not visible to Buyers if you don’t want them seeing it.
Thanks for your thoughts. This new direction is meant to capture what made the forums great and useful, in a condensed format. They aren’t going to be the same as before, but we plan to continue making them better with your feedback.
I really do not have to have the hearts and flowers, talk of outside disasters or about the economy, etc. But I do need to be able to have open discussions about business specific topics such as photos and images, templates and HTML, Google (especially), places to promote on, business strategies like for shipping, etc, etc.
The What to sell in 2013 thread was a good business thread because it let me know as a seller what is actually selling. Granted, there was the occasional post that made its way in there that did not need to be in there (same can happen in the roundtable now), but the thread was so specific that I believe this kept those posts minimal.
Can Bonanza please give us some leeway? Why chop it down so far so fast. Can’t we try something else out.
The rest of the community page looks good to me. I did think it was nice for sellers to be able to introduce their business and I liked to see what they had for sale, which in a sense is promoting so maybe Introduce yourself could go somewhere under the Promoting section as in New seller on Bonanza? Introduce Yourself to the Community… Look at all of the helpful links that Alilbirdy posted that were meant to help a newbie succeed on Bonanza. It would be a shame not to still have the opportunity to get that kind of help upon introduction.
Hey TipTop, you’re absolutely right that we ought to build something that lets people share valuable information and become more successful sellers. A lot of this will happen inside the Community Help section as users get used to the cool and creative new opportunities that this format allows. We’ll also be continuing to add functionality to it over the next couple weeks, so please send any ideas you have on it to [email protected] and we’ll take a look at them.
This is going to take a lot of work to make it as useful as the forums used to be. I do believe that “the best voted answer” is not enough. Sometimes you need more than one way to solve a problem.
And how am I going to get that recipe for making my own laundry detergent!?
Hey junkstuff4d, thanks for the feedback! I’d recommend you give this a chance. We’ll still show as many answers as are given, just like the forums. The difference here is that we order them be usefulness, rather than by the time they happened to be written.
Bill, if those threads that I have linked to in that long post I have up there, stay active that is fine, but you guys plan to get rid of those threads from what I am understanding.
We would have to go into the community help and re create each of those threads. Much of that information is not just what I have put in there, there are others that shared information. It would only work if you leave those threads, maybe make a Specific spot for Shared Information among sellers and move those threads into that area so they are not lost.
I can not find where to post a reply in the community help, to any of the threads that have been posted. Are we limited on how often or how many replies we can make in there ?
I have to say I don’t really like this new forum format..I am a great visitor of the forums. even host a few of the games..I can’t seem to easily find my way around..I am sure we will get used to it after awhile but it has to be inviting enough for us to want to come back and try to navigate..I don’t look forward to it anymore…just my opinion
Thanks, good to know we can still see all input. Now, where do I find “Community Help”, “New on Bonanza” and “Fun and Games” sections? I don’t see those listed under “Community.”
Wow, that was a lot of questions and comments! Thank you everyone for all of your feedback and constructive comments. We sincerely appreciate it. Make sure to keep an eye out for more polishing of our new Community Help area.
107 responses to New and Improved Community Section Now Live
It feels so confined….I’m glad I had the opportunity to be in the forums with the way that it was before, otherwise not having those lengthy discussions in “real time” like we had would not have taught me what I know today. I am feeling very discouraged about that part right there….like there’s no real time discussion. I am also glad I got to know other sellers when the forums were the way they were…I’m just not feeling like I can do the same now. It feels like “one question at a time” rather than “let’s talk about it.” I’m just being honest here.
I do like the area off to the right and like the idea of MGMT communicating with us, that part is great. Thank you for that.
Thanks for your comments TipTopMgr. Change can be unfamiliar at first but we would encourage you to hang in there. The new community pages have been live for less than an hour
Also we will refine the community pages based on feedback received from the community. So I would say to give it a go for a bit and lets revisit the feedback after you have had a few days to give it a whirl.
It seems that only threads that were formerly in the Roundtable carried over to Community Help, with the most recent from about 14 days ago. Are sellers still going to be able to ask questions about the site’s functionality / selling issues? I hope so, otherwise Bonz support would be swamped with questions from sellers.
As the Community Help pages are used, the new topics will populate that area. The great thing about the Community Help pages is that answers will be able to be voted up or down based on relevancy. So the days of searching through a forum thread for specific answers are behind us now. With this new format, you will be able to pinpoint the most popular answer for your Community Help questions.
Where will the photo thread be then? I enjoy that one alot.
Sounds like that would be a prime thread for the “Fun & Games” area. You should be able to reclassify threads into the new area too
I’m so happy with this company I have not sell anything yet because I’m new and I need to put my page in order but besides that I like the relationship with customer service with buyers and sellers, and the respect they treat you to me this company is going to be real big very soon and is up for us sellers to invite buyers .
Mom? ahahah
Thank you evaluna. We look forward to walking that journey with you!
I don’t mean to be unthankful, but Mark you all took out
introductions forum. you took out the sellers forum, and you took out the sales boosting and the general forum. you should of kept at least 1-2 of them. I really think you all made a big mistake here. Just my thoughts!
Thanks for your feedback normasbathandbody. We shall see how things go. Our hope is to remain helpful, positive, fun, and empowering (and a bunch of other great things). We are always listening to suggestions and feedback on how we can improve and we appreciate your input.
My thought on this, it’s ok but I think the General Forum, Sellers Forum and Sales Boosting Forum needs to come back. IMHO
It always takes time to adjust to new. I think it looks pretty good overall.
Re: Is Community Help going to be kept in the RoundTable format? One answer per question per person, with seller reputation scores? That format which was developed for product identification with authentication links does not seem to lend itself to a community help forum. And the purpose of voting on a help page is???
Thank you
The roundtable format will vote up the best answer to a question (voted by the community) so that is a plus for sure. Being able to just post once may be something that needs attention, then again, it may force users to post really good answers
Thanks for the feedback MyTexasTreasures.
The General Forum needs to come back people look forward to the Daily Smile threads and to have that suddenly disappear will be a disappointment.
You should be able to visit a thread from the soon to be removed forum threads and suggest a reclassification. That way the whole thread will be moved over to the new forums. The Daily Smile thread sounds like a really good candidate for the “Fun & Games” forum.
Can someone point me to The Daily Smiles.
http://www.bonanza.com/forums/11
http://www.bonanza.com/forums/12
Not sure which forum it was in love_birds but maybe you can find in the above threads.
I can get wordy in response to someone’s question, so sometimes I do not explain myself well and need a second chance to explain.
Likewise, I sometimes have a hard time understanding what someone is saying when I start a thread, which is really not uncommon since we are not face to face. I definitely would like for them to have a second chance to say what it is that they are trying to say to me. It would be hard to keep going back through the questions to see if anyone edited their post
I do not feel all topics belong in Fun & Games.
There are sellers here who are serious about their business, and if the only place to introduce is the Promote Booth, and the only place to get an answer is Roundtable, we have essentially blocked them from joining the community as a whole
Just when I get used to something one way it changes which I hate. Do tweets not show up anymore?
The most recent tweets section was retired with the new design. However all items will still be tweeted and Twitter just enabled “Tweet pics!” Woo hoo!
Whoa Nellie! What sterile environment have we here? Very uninviting to say the least. To each his own I guess, but I will be spending time doing other things and not here in the new “forums”. Thumbs down I am afraid to say.
If you have suggestions on how we can improve the current format, feel free to let us know.
Right now the daily smile is under this area
http://www.bonanza.com/forums/1
But may be moving to the Fun and Games section.
Well, one of the few things you can count on for certain in life is change, which usually requires an adjustment, so looks like we’ll be adjusting.
Where is the help now from fellow new sellers? The FAQs are not the same. Reading the forums has really helped me. Even though I am just getting started, I enjoyed reading the posts by others sellers. Now I just feel lost. I am rethinking selling here now. In my opinion it is wrong to change things so drastically. It is like you don’t even care about the sellers at all. Please change the forums back to the way they were. If I am missing something here, please enlighten me.
The “Community Help” page should serve for helping all sellers. The difference is that when you view a thread now, the most popular answer for that question (voted on by the community) will rise to the top. So you can get the best answer first, then if you want you can read all the other answers too
If you have specific feedback on how we can improve the new community pages, please do share.
I really think there needs to be a separate and distinct forum that seems to be lacking – one specifically for sellers to ask “how-to” or best practices kinds of questions. I further think that forum needs to be set up in such a way that one can easily see what questions might have been asked in the past, rather than necessarily start a new thread. There are often several ways to handle a question, and there should be ample time for many people to weigh in on how they have handled the situation in the past. We have for so long relied on the expertise of more experienced sellers, and that was most helpful to us. (It also obviated the necessity for management to hire several people whose whole job was to answer those questions on a one-to-one basis.)
Carolyn
Great feedback Carolyn! I especially like the idea for viewing questions have been asked in the past. Adding to that, it would be really neat if when you typed in a title into a new question field that we returned relevant results for topics that have already been created. That would prevent double ups.
New posts are not appearing on the community page in Fun and Games.
It appears to be working at the moment.
Simple solution. Change Community Help from the roundtable forum, eliminate the ‘vote’, one answer per person, & reputation (which is really not necessary but distracting) and put it in a format like the others. Then you have three viable forums. A win/win
I’ll be honest, I hate these type of “help” boards. In all the ones I’ve ever seen they are cold, full of trolls and completely unhelpful. There is no sense of community in something like this, as there are in DISCUSSION boards.
Speaking of, the Sellers forum was a huge help to lots of sellers, including myself. There were questions asked, but also just discussions on how to improve one’s booth. I posted the email about Google Checkout being discontinued yesterday, and that’s not a “question” I can post to the new rating system, is it?
Sigh. It’s not our site though. We are just permitted to use it. This just won’t be a section I use anymore.
(FYI, before it gets deleted, the Sellers Forum is here: http://www.bonanza.com/forums/9 Better read up while you can.)
There seems to be a lot missing on the new look of things.
No Introduce your self, no place for sellers to ask questions, No personal, many of the old pages are gone, what about the threads where many sellers contributed to helping newbies ?
Like all of these links to threads I have for newbies.
what every Newbie needs to know
Here are some Very Important things you should know to help you get started as well as to help increase the opportunities for making sales
http://www.bonanza.com/forums/9/topics/132589
Where you should promote your booth here on Bonanza Because just anywhere won’t do
http://www.bonanza.com/forums/9/topics/132547
How and Where to add attributes so your listings will show on Google searches
http://www.bonanza.com/forums/9/topics/132586
How to suggest and add traits to your listings, for Bonanza searches
http://www.bonanza.com/forums/9/topics/134874
Bonanza pricing guide and other help from the site.
http://www.bonanza.com/site_help/general/pricing?layout=&title=Bonanza+Pricing
A handy Google page shows do’s and dont’s, to make your page optimal for their search bots
http://webdesign.about.com/cs/promotion/a/aaaagoogle.htm
Google Exempt form,you will need to send the form to google if your items are custom, one of a kind or vintage that do not have identifiers
http://www.google.com/support/merchants/bin/request.py?contact_type=unique_id_exemption
If you would like to learn how to post a photo from your booth,or any other image, posting it on this forum.
Please visit this step by step tutorial with screenshots I have written. It will also show you how to post a clickable image to your booth.
http://www.bonanza.com/forums/7/topics/132648
Is your Booth “Dressed For Success”? Avatars, Banners, Panels, and more!
http://www.bonanza.com/topics/268053?forum_id=7&page=1
Here is Bonanza’s list of prohibited items just in case you need to check your items
http://www.bonanza.com/site_help/general/prohibited_items
I’m looking for a thread that has been running all year—it’s called : What Do You Sell in 2013 . It was in Sales and people listed what they’d sold and for how much. Very helpful.
I’d like to suggest that the topics under Deals And Promotions be changed to bold font like they are under Community Help. Thank you!
Gonna take it slow, get the feel for this and then maybe I’ll have a comment. Right now it’s time to learn something new.
I’m ok with change!
I don’t mind change however I never used the round table so I am clueless on all of this, I think this will push me to stay in my booth and work on it and not go to the forums. So maybe this will be good for me jmho
Although it is new, IMO, I do believe you have given many, many sellers, as well as new browsers,a lot more time to do other things with their time rather then spending it enjoying the camaraderie with many old, as well as new friends.
I also believe this change robs the new members of the
opportunity to learn so much about selling and promoting their Booth from the very knowledgeable and giving on what was once a very informative, enjoyable, and active forum.
I know I will have many more hours to pursue other endeavors.
Well, now I have no where to go while I drink my coffee. I liked it the old way, even if it wasn’t “Perfect”.
Hmmmm … not sure on how I feel about the ‘new’ forum areas. I used to use the Sellers Discussions quite a bit. Or is that now included in the Community Help section?
The Community Help section would seem like the best fit for a sellers discussion. Thank you for your feedback.
Always great and fun to learn some new features…. Thanks for all you guys do to make it a better fun place!
Clean and neat!
I enjoyed browsing the forums in the morning while I had my coffee, and jumping into a discussion once in a while. And I’d often learn something new in the process, and I’ve made a few friends. I’m gonna miss that…
Still bring your coffee and join in on some of the new discussions wa5tsu!
Mark: When a user clicks to vote, does the system record WHO voted?
I am sure it does to ensure that they are unique. But the details are on the back end, not visible to support or admins.
I’m confused! I created a game for the Birthday lists but I don’t see how anything can be posted. How can we play if we can’t make posts? So I decided to read the Games FAQ but it appears that there is a link but it doesn’t take you anywhere. Please tell us how the games section works. I can’t post tomorrow’s b-days without some instruction.
When you open the games forum you will see an area to create a new topic. Just beside the title is a “Register” link. Click that to register your new game.
Yep, definitely new.
There is no place to keep up with what is happening with people..I am not talking about Drama but what about the Tornado stricken Bonz sellers and stuff like that DO NOT belong in FUN AND GAMES!!!!
Thank you for your feedback AnimePagoda.
OH!!! I went to start the DAILY SMILE in the Fun and Games does not pertain to any game and the title changes from day to day? I am not sure what to do now is sad that you are making the forums worse.
If you have a new game, just click on the “Register” link beside the title field. If you continue to have trouble, please contact us at support so we can assist.
Just freaked out today looking for the forums and not seeing it! sigh Change. Such is life.
I don’t know about this new format.
It does not have that Community Feel to it any more.
The General and Sellers forums really do need to be here. Those 2 forums gave us the chance to get to know the other sellers and a few buyers. The wealth of information that some of the other sellers would freely give was Priceless.
In my opinion, I think you left to much on the cutting room floor on this one.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Kevin
Thank you for your feedback Kevin, we appreciate it.
My two personal favorite sections have been the fun and games and personal. Now personal is gone. Half the fun of community is now gone. This layout seems rather cold and uninviting compared to the old layout.
Thank you for your feedback. With all new features there is a break in period. We are wide open to feedback and also to future polishing if need be
A few comments & questions
1. Looks clean
2. Not sure about the format of Community Help…as someone said…if one can only post once…there is no opportunity for the inquirer to get clarification on answers one doesn’t quite understand, except by maybe b-mailing them
3. Still do not see the purpose in the Who’s Around or Say Hello To….this would seem a good area for basic chit chat for those who like visiting with the community, seller’s questions, introduce yourself
4. I do like the blog section being more noticable
Thank you nutz4bookznstuff. Replies to your comments/questions:
1) Thank you.
2) The community will vote up the best answers as will the original poster. I believe that the original poster and the responder can edit their posts too.
3) New users receive many welcomes and great information from being in the “Say Hello to.” Showing who’s around also helps to show you who is active on Bonanza at the moment.
4) Thank you, we do too
Not sure about this moderator approval…too easy to cut and paste and weed out any negative comments…makes one feel they are just getting what the gov wants them to know
That is definitely one way to look at it. The flip side is that we can keep the discussion constructive and moving in a positive direction. The comments that do not make it to our blog are comments that add no value to the discussion (meaning that the comments detract from the discussion at hand).
really, really going to miss this. Like the others I looked at the forum while drinking coffee. I learned a lot from the members who took the time to post….made several friends that I would like to keep up with.
This is a great opportunity to keep that spirit alive and promote your business at the same time. You can create an booth that is attractive to other users to visit. In addition to having an open discussion with your friends on your booth chat window, you will have potential buyers at your booth.
It’s not clear to many folks how to get to the forums now. Using the “old way” of hovering over “Community”, it appears that all the forums have disappeared, since one has to actual click on “Community” to get there. If one doesn’t read the blog, then that impression is reinforced. How about reinstating that old way of hovering to get to the forums and/or how about an email to all users, explaining the change? Seems important to me, especially if one can’t get to the forums to find out where the forums are!
Good feedback Phyndz. We are definitely listening to all feedback and will likely take a pass or two (or more) to polish the community page.
The problem I see on the forums, I will have to go back and forth to a forum thread to see if anyone responds on it a 2nd time, in other words I posted a reply in the forums and got an answer via support later and tried to post my reply however I have to reply on my first post, how many people will go back and see what others might reply back on something they posted earlier, very confusing
Sounds like something that may need some polish. Thank you for bringing this up.
Mark, you responded above that the Community Help section would be the best fit for seller discussions. However, having that section in the round table format does not allow for an actual “discussion”. The promo section is restricted to posting only by the OP, so the only section where an actual discussion can happen is fun and games. If, as you say, the forums are not used much by the average buyer, but by sellers and sellers that are also buyers, then you have removed nearly everything that was beneficial to them. Hoping this decision will be revisited, because the sense of community was always an important part of the experience here, and that is gone with this limited and sterile format. Please reconsider.
You are correct Silkworm. The new community pages are going to take some getting used to even for me
The question and answer format definitely serves specific questions best. I think a personal discussion would be best served via Bmail. A general discussion would be a good fit for your booth chat box. That is a really good area for friends getting together to chat and there is no limit to how many can converse. Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback.
Is there any place at all where the community can engage in general chit-chat?
I think a lot of members are really going to miss this and may not be on-site nearly as much as they once were due to lack of interest.
Couldn’t there be an area for this maybe between the Fun & Games and Who’s Around or before Fun & Games by making each of those showing a few less on page.
This would allow those who wish to socialize the opportunity while those who don’t the option to ignore that section entirely just as they may the Fun & Games.
Similar to the above reply, general chit-chat would be a good fit for your booth chat box. That is a really good area for friends getting together to chat and there is no limit to how many can converse. We are also wide open for feedback on how we can make it better and stay within our goals for a positive and upbeat introduction to Bonanza for new users, provide a place to swap tips on how to maximize selling effectiveness, provide a free opportunity to promote your booth and a location to keep users up-to-date on what’s new on Bonanza.
Mark,
The problem with b-mail as a solution to chit chat is it is only between two parties and booth chat works only if one is aware that a discussion they may wish to partake in is happening
Could there not be a social forum that would only be visible to members as it was done for drama. Maybe this could be assessible from one’s profile or “My Bonanza” page where it would not be on the forum/community page at all.
For now I think the best solution is to use Bmail for personal chit chat, and booth chat for a community discussion. I actually see this as a really good opportunity for Bonanza sellers to create booths that have a thriving community within. Create an environment that is attractive to other users to come to your booth. In addition to having a community chit chat, you will have potential buyers at your booth. Bonanza sellers have always done a great job about customizing Bonanza in a way that benefits their business. We are excited to see sellers taking advantage of this opportunity.
I thought for certain I was on the wrong website or something and the new look is a bit confusing to me. I’m not so sure I like the “roundtable” style for the questions now because I learned a LOT from reading various discussions back and forth between OP and all others who commented. I’m so glad that I joined when this site was still Bonanzle and for all the friends I made during that time and all of the valuable things I learned. I’m not so sure that this new experience will be so enlightening. (sigh)
Thank you for your feedback and for giving the new pages a try. Keep us posted on any specific improvements that you would like to see on the new community pages.
Mark said “A general discussion would be a good fit for your booth chat box. That is a really good area for friends getting together to chat and there is no limit to how many can converse.”
While this may be true, We met our friends in the community forum. We can certainly carry our current friends to our booth, but what about continually meeting NEW FRIENDS? and how will new users find us?
I think inviting users to booth chat promotes “clicks” and not a widespread community.
Good question princessgifts7. It will be fun to see what kind of ideas sellers come up with to get new users to their booth (and how they convert this to business/fun). We have many tools and communication options for buyers and sellers. This would be a good time to look at those tools with a different lens and see how they can help you gain those new users. This would be a good question for the “Community Help” pages (ie, How can I use my booth chat window to maximize sales, etc?).
Well, having read through all of the comments, it would appear that there is a common thread. This new format pretty much destroys the sense of community that made Bonanza so special.
Suggesting that booth chat is the place to have seller discussions doesn’t take into account the fact that others who might have participated in the conversation and helped find a solution if one was needed certainly can’t do so if they don’t know the conversation is going on. It also doesn’t take into account that when a lot of people are talking in booth chat and conversations are long, chat freaks out and freezes up and you have to keep clearing it, which means that you lose the continuity of the conversation.
The roundtable format is bad for many reasons, not the least of which is the inability to have an actual discussion. The voting comments up or down that you seem very fond of is actually a bad idea. I’ve seen many instances in the roundtable when wrong identifications or bad information have been promoted to the top simply because the information is presented in an intelligent fashion. Sort of “He/she sounds smart, so he/she MUST know what he/she is talking about”.
Selling online is a hard and lonely business. The community aspect of Bonanza is what made me settle in and stay for so long. I made friends, I was able to build a support system, and I knew that someone would be around in the forums to help me if I needed it, 24/7. Can’t you give us at least ONE forum that preserves that nurturing, friendly environment?
I think the voting up may be okay in terms of finding the most helpful answer. I do think though, that the rest of the Round Table format doesn’t really work. As mentioned above, sometimes a person wants clarification of a previous post. It needs to be a threaded discussion to be sure no info gets missed, such as when a poster comes back to add more info. One cannot re-read the whole thread every time, just to see if anyone added a sentence to their previous post.
Otherwise, I like having way less forums.
I think all Personal stuff should be in the Fun & Games, but maybe the title could be changed, since obviously, tornadoes, etc., are not ‘fun’.
Can previous posts be brought into the new forum, or should we re-start useful ones such as the previously mentioned ’What have you sold in 2013?"
“Can previous posts be brought into the new forum, or should we re-start useful ones such as the previously mentioned ’What have you sold in 2013?”
A. You should be able to reclassify a post to the new forums provided that is an option. Another idea would be to “edit” your original post and copy and paste the text into a relevant category on Bonanza.
Okay, I just spent around half an hour poking around community. And this is my feeling about it. It does not feel like a community like it used to feel. I understand what you are trying to say about people coming into each others booths and chatting there, and it seems like a good idea on paper. But will people actually do that? I think not. It is much easier to go to community for bringing people together than it is to go to another’s booth. I strongly urge you to put in the personal section of community. That section is what really held Bonanza together. Without it Bonanza won’t feel as warm and inviting. What I see myself doing in the future with this setup is maybe looking at The Daily Smile and playing a game or two now and then and that’s it.
Thank you for your feedback. We are glad to hear that you will still be joining in threads that are also on the new community pages that you do enjoy.
I hope we can keep the forum I started. It’s called, What have you sold in 2013? I have many followers and contributors with priceless information on what to look for when going to garage and estate sales.
Hey there,
I’d agree that you provided an encouraging and positive activity for people to participate in, and we’d like to preserve that. In the next couple weeks we’re going to be fleshing out the Community Help section pretty rapidly, and I think you’ll find that that section will allow you to carry on your thread, albeit you’ll apply some creativity to adapt the format. Stick with us as we beef up the Community Help area, and be creative!
1. For the Bonanza Community Help section, will there eventually be many pages to scroll through, or will it be limited to one page? Will posts have some sort of time limit before they then “fall off”?
2. Will a post such as the “What Have You Sold in 2013?” be allowed in the Bonanza Community Help section? (It would *seem to fit since it serves to help the Bonanza community.) If it would be allowed, is there a limit to the number of times one’s post can be updated?
Thank you for the information.
1. Absolutely. And a souped up search box as well, so that information becomes much easier to find than it ever was with the forums
2. See answer above. I think that Community Help will be the place for a discussion like this one, especially as we add a couple more bells and whistles to it in the coming weeks.
Mark you mentioned a good place for chat was in the games, but when you go to create a new thread, it wants you to link to a game. What if you want to say something to everyone, and it isn’t a game and it isn’t something for a round table discussion. Like If I wanted to let folks know how to do something like post an image in a thread, or find how to add attributes to their listings. Those are not round table discussions or games.
Posting an image in a thread or adding attributes to a listing are ideal candidates to be put into the Community Help section. Plus, over time, if the Q&A you create is valuable to others, you’ll build up reputation and get actual recognition for the work you do to make the site easier for others to use.
At least you could give a General Discussions thread where folks can communicate with everyone since they won’t all know to look in your booth chat.
This format is too stark, and you all did not use any of the suggestions when you were asking for them before you decided to change the forum. You asked for suggestions and even indicated that some of the suggestions would be used or given serious thought. It looks like you were not really wanting suggestions, but looking for a way to tell everyone that the forum would not be there, Just games and a round table.
What about it, give us a General Discussions place. Not visible to Buyers if you don’t want them seeing it.
Thanks for your thoughts. This new direction is meant to capture what made the forums great and useful, in a condensed format. They aren’t going to be the same as before, but we plan to continue making them better with your feedback.
I really do not have to have the hearts and flowers, talk of outside disasters or about the economy, etc. But I do need to be able to have open discussions about business specific topics such as photos and images, templates and HTML, Google (especially), places to promote on, business strategies like for shipping, etc, etc.
The What to sell in 2013 thread was a good business thread because it let me know as a seller what is actually selling. Granted, there was the occasional post that made its way in there that did not need to be in there (same can happen in the roundtable now), but the thread was so specific that I believe this kept those posts minimal.
Can Bonanza please give us some leeway? Why chop it down so far so fast. Can’t we try something else out.
The rest of the community page looks good to me. I did think it was nice for sellers to be able to introduce their business and I liked to see what they had for sale, which in a sense is promoting so maybe Introduce yourself could go somewhere under the Promoting section as in New seller on Bonanza? Introduce Yourself to the Community… Look at all of the helpful links that Alilbirdy posted that were meant to help a newbie succeed on Bonanza. It would be a shame not to still have the opportunity to get that kind of help upon introduction.
Hey TipTop, you’re absolutely right that we ought to build something that lets people share valuable information and become more successful sellers. A lot of this will happen inside the Community Help section as users get used to the cool and creative new opportunities that this format allows. We’ll also be continuing to add functionality to it over the next couple weeks, so please send any ideas you have on it to [email protected] and we’ll take a look at them.
This is going to take a lot of work to make it as useful as the forums used to be. I do believe that “the best voted answer” is not enough. Sometimes you need more than one way to solve a problem.
And how am I going to get that recipe for making my own laundry detergent!?
Hey junkstuff4d, thanks for the feedback! I’d recommend you give this a chance. We’ll still show as many answers as are given, just like the forums. The difference here is that we order them be usefulness, rather than by the time they happened to be written.
Bill, if those threads that I have linked to in that long post I have up there, stay active that is fine, but you guys plan to get rid of those threads from what I am understanding.
We would have to go into the community help and re create each of those threads. Much of that information is not just what I have put in there, there are others that shared information. It would only work if you leave those threads, maybe make a Specific spot for Shared Information among sellers and move those threads into that area so they are not lost.
I can not find where to post a reply in the community help, to any of the threads that have been posted. Are we limited on how often or how many replies we can make in there ?
Currently a user can reply one time per post in that thread.
I have to say I don’t really like this new forum format..I am a great visitor of the forums. even host a few of the games..I can’t seem to easily find my way around..I am sure we will get used to it after awhile but it has to be inviting enough for us to want to come back and try to navigate..I don’t look forward to it anymore…just my opinion
Thank you for your feedback and glad to hear that you are going to give it a go.
so where is the link to it?i can’t find it.
http://www.bonanza.com/community
Thanks, good to know we can still see all input. Now, where do I find “Community Help”, “New on Bonanza” and “Fun and Games” sections? I don’t see those listed under “Community.”
http://www.bonanza.com/community
Wow, that was a lot of questions and comments! Thank you everyone for all of your feedback and constructive comments. We sincerely appreciate it. Make sure to keep an eye out for more polishing of our new Community Help area.
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