Not loving the PSAs

[Kontact]

I don't know about most Paceline users, but I hit New Posts to check what's going on. And a lot of the time the majority of new posts are in the classifieds, and close to half of those posts are PSAs.

I get it - we all love bikes and like to live vicariously through our fellows. So when a bike just like the one we have and love comes up we want to tell people about it with a PSA.

But as a person who sometimes spends the time searching out a rare model or a good price, it is a bit annoying to do the work and then have someone with no skin in the game advertising what you're bidding on to a group of people who didn't care enough to search it out themselves, and who are suddenly bidding against you.

I can see liking PSAs if you're one of those people that wants to protect used bike prices, but they are just clotting the Classifieds. It's great to inform someone with a WTB about a deal you've seen, but as a general announcement; I don't know who is really benefiting, aside from the seller. Which is also ridiculous because if the seller wanted to post their ad directly on Paceline, we wouldn't let them, yet their ad can get reprinted here via PSA.

[brewsmith]

Good points made.

Having personally benefitted from some PSA's posted here, yet also felt the outrage at seeing a bargain I had 'scouted', outed, I can see both sides of the coin here....

[bob heinatz]

Yes you have made some valid points but sometimes it is a matter of luck when you find a great deal on a fantastic bike. It can also be a downer when you just missed out on a perfect bike. The internet has opened up a new way to buy a bike whether it is new or old. In addition it has helped you reach customers selling your fine saddle.

[Kontact]

Originally Posted by bob heinatz

Yes you have made some valid points but sometimes it is a matter of luck when you find a great deal on a fantastic bike. It can also be a downer when you just missed out on a perfect bike. The internet has opened up a new way to buy a bike whether it is new or old. In addition it has helped you reach customers selling your fine saddle.

Maybe I need people posting Kontact PSAs to change my foul attitude.

If getting good deals was so important, the forum wouldn't make it hard for new people to post ads. Which is why it seems odd to allow PSAs to non-member ads.

[Clean39T]

I get wanting to have a way for PSAs and WTBs to not be clogging up the main classifieds, and I’d support a sub-forum for each of those two - or an attempt to use categories for stickies (ex. the “big bikes” thread).

That said, I think the argument that people shouldn’t share interesting or unique items with their friends because someone else wants to lowball-bid a seller to be more than a little selfish and counter to the spirit of an enthusiast forum.

If you find something rare and you want it, go ahead and buy it. No one gets to call “dibs” on the internet - it’s an open market and until you buy, or make an agreement with the buyer, you’re taking a chance there’s some other Campy loving person in outer Mongolia considering hitting the BIN button at the same time you are...or emailing a CL listing...or scooping up Silca bits on sale.

And when it comes to auctions, who says one person has a right to decide their best-offer should win (and the seller should get less money) when someone else values the item more and has a higher best-offer?

I’ve posted more than a handful of PSAs over the year I’ve been here, and have done so because I thought (and still do) it was a friendly thing to do. And in so doing, have united more than a handful of folks with bikes and other bits that I assume they are happy to have been alerted to...and I’ve been on the receiving end of the same.

Ultimately, it’s up to the mods. If they say “no more PSAs”, then so be it. Until then, we’ll just have to let the internet become what it becomes based on the interests of its users - and the PSAs will either increase because people participate in the threads and find value, or else they’ll slowly fade away if that’s not the case.

IMHO, and nothing personal.

[cadence90]

I have long advocated the following Marketplace Forum/Sub-Forum organization, which I think would be much more clean as well as "fair":

Marketplace

Classifieds (Cycling Products)

FS (For Sale)

WTB (Want To Buy)

PSA

Vendors

Until then, I will accept the PSAs where they are. I think that perhaps more members appreciate the PSAs than not.

Originally Posted by Kontact

....

But as a person who sometimes spends the time searching out a rare model or a good price, it is a bit annoying to do the work and then have someone with no skin in the game advertising what you're bidding on to a group of people who didn't care enough to search it out themselves, and who are suddenly bidding against you.

I can see liking PSAs if you're one of those people that wants to protect used bike prices, but they are just clotting the Classifieds. It's great to inform someone with a WTB about a deal you've seen, but as a general announcement; I don't know who is really benefiting, aside from the seller. Which is also ridiculous because if the seller wanted to post their ad directly on Paceline, we wouldn't let them, yet their ad can get reprinted here via PSA.

Frankly, I don't understand the "protect my research", "free advertising", etc., stances, and these seem a bit precious. If I see a bicycle or component that I think might be of interest to the community at large for sale somewhere, why should I have to take the secret preferences of others into account at all prior to posting a PSA? In any case, I would bet that many of us have very similar eBay, DailyLister, etc., saved searches.

What irks me more regarding the current Classifieds is sellers bumping their own posts constantly (every 12 hours or even less ); sellers stating "SOLD!!!" as a new post (thus bumping their no-longer-available listing to the top ) rather than simply editing their title/post #1; and all the inane ("Wish it was my size!", "Nice bike, bro!", etc., ) comments which do the same thing while also providing zero value.

Weight Weenies is a great model for a Classifieds format:
1) Sellers must post details, prices, AND photos.
2) NO comments, etc., are allowed (all questions/transactions are conducted via PM).
Very, very clean and elegant.
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[Kontact]

I don't really understand how a thread entitled "PSA - I wish this Klein was my size" is different than the post to an ad "Great bike, I wish this Klein was my size".


As far as this idea of "protected research" goes, no one needs the forum to do them any favors. I was just illustrating how it can be annoying to have disinterested third parties involved in the buying process - little different than someone making annoying comments in a sale ad.

Forumites can and should share interesting things they see on the net, but that isn't what is happening with Classifieds. People read the Classifieds to buy things, not of edification.

[BobC]

Complete bystander opinion. Just my lowly 2 cents on the dollar.

I think most of the PSAs offered are in a community spirit, as are many of the comments (often offering support, assistance if local or warning orders if someone thinks the seller/good is not legit).

I get that sometimes we might upset if you have discovered that an item you wanted now is visible to the paceline community, but in the end it is just a bike or bike part.

Finally, Clean, lets talk when you decide to finally exhale that tremendous collection of bikes. It is impressive!

[R3awak3n]

Its not the PSAs that are bad but the bad PSAs that are bad. Anyone can do a craigslist search so why post the results here?

Although I like the idea cadence90 presented, I do think wtb and fs should stay in the same place or I suspect less people will go to the wtb and that subforum will not work as well.

[alancw3]

Originally Posted by BobC

Complete bystander opinion. Just my lowly 2 cents on the dollar.

I think most of the PSAs offered are in a community spirit, as are many of the comments (often offering support, assistance if local or warning orders if someone thinks the seller/good is not legit).

I get that sometimes we might upset if you have discovered that an item you wanted now is visible to the paceline community, but in the end it is just a bike or bike part.

Finally, Clean, lets talk when you decide to finally exhale that tremendous collection of bikes. It is impressive!

+1 this topic has been discussed here before. imho the original post here was from a purely selfish self severing point of view. psa"s have always been part of the forum and again imho well received and appreciated in the spirit of helping other forum members. i suggest if someone has a problem with then then they simply don't read them. problem solved!!!

[cadence90]

Originally Posted by Kontact

I don't really understand how a thread entitled "PSA - I wish this Klein was my size" is different than the post to an ad "Great bike, I wish this Klein was my size".

If we are splitting hairs I suppose that those two versions could be read in a similar manner.

In either case, if a great Klein has been PSA'd, and someone here benefits from that, does it really matter whether they have been alerted to it in post #1 ("PSA - I wish this Klein was my size") or in post #8 ("Great bike, I wish this Klein was my size")?

Originally Posted by Kontact

As far as this idea of "protected research" goes, no one needs the forum to do them any favors. I was just illustrating how it can be annoying to have disinterested third parties involved in the buying process - little different than someone making annoying comments in a sale ad.

Annoying to whom, exactly? At least some PF members, and perhaps more, appear to be appreciative of PSAs, rather than annoyed.

Well-intentioned PSAs are not at all comparable to "annoying comments in a sale ad". Those posting a PSA are not "involved in the buying process" by definition; they are minimally involved in the advertising process, period. They are also disinterested by one definition (acquisition, etc.) only, but not the other (no interest or feeling at all). This Croll mtb does not fit me, and so I would never buy it; it is still a nice bicycle, for a good price, and so of course I would be happy if another PF member might see it, maybe buy it, and maybe be happy...hence my sole interest in posting the PSA. If you liked it, you might have bought it by now....

Originally Posted by Kontact

Forumites can and should share interesting things they see on the net, but that isn't what is happening with Classifieds. People read the Classifieds to buy things, not of edification.

Again, I do not feel that the distinction is quite so black-and-white.

Charles (cnighbor1) posts Classifieds PSAs here all the time. I read them (even though they have often already appeared in my emails from BOBlist); I have yet to buy a single item from these PSAs; and yet much of the time I do learn something from them.
Not a bad deal at all, for a few free moments of my spare time, right?

Get off your junk: wwwkontactbikecom

Finally, as "bob heinatz" pointed out above, every time you reply to a post you are in effect PSAing your own business via your signature line, without being listed in either the "Vendors" section of the Classifieds or among the banner-ad sponsors. Talk about free advertising.... "No harm, no foul" imo, and more power to you in your ventures. But while nobody, including myself, is complaining at all about any of that, the tangential irony is clear.
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[bicycletricycle]

I like them, it’s like I have a spy network.

I have had something I was bidding on on eBay outed in a PSA, so what, it was a public listing in the first place.

[Bruce K]

A couple of things:

1- We’ve discussed this a bunch of times and, at the moment, we are not inclined to add more sub forums

2- Like many things here, if you don't like the PSAs, just skip/ignore them

3- We try to keep the “one liners” and negative replies to Classifieds to a minimum but the PSA situation is not likely to change any time soon

BK

[alancw3]

Originally Posted by Bruce K

A couple of things:

1- We’ve discussed this a bunch of times and, at the moment, we are not inclined to add more sub forums

2- Like many things here, if you don't like the PSAs, just skip/ignore them

3- We try to keep the “one liners” and negative replies to Classifieds to a minimum but the PSA situation is not likely to change any time soon

BK

thanks bruce. read my prior post as it basically mirrors exactly what you said. let us be finished with this topic.

[NYCfixie]

As a relative newcomer....

1 - Use better subjects no matter FS, WTB, or PSA (because it is just good internet manners)

2 - PSAs are annoying when they are "noise" in what might be a less "noisy" classifieds section. Section them out so those that do not want them can ignore them (or do not allow them).

3 - Why allow responses to classifieds (the cool bike bro response is not helpful and just clogs up threads and the section)? Paceline allows so many PMs (unlike across the hall) so there really is no need to respond in the thread anyway if you are interested. If the seller finds they are answering the same question over and over via PMs they can just update the thread

4 - Do not allow "bumps" or enforce a 48 hour rule. Again, bumping every few hours is annoying. It is 2018 and the search feature is really good so do we, as buyers, really need a bump from a seller? Do these bumps from sellers really make things sell faster? Consider both sides people as many forum users are buyers and sellers.

5 - See suggestion 1. Please, Please, Please use better subjects.

Originally Posted by Clean39T

I get wanting to have a way for PSAs and WTBs to not be clogging up the main classifieds, and I’d support a sub-forum for each of those two - or an attempt to use categories for stickies (ex. the “big bikes” thread).

Originally Posted by cadence90

I have long advocated the following Marketplace Forum/Sub-Forum organization, which I think would be much more clean as well as "fair":

Marketplace

Classifieds (Cycling Products)

FS (For Sale)

WTB (Want To Buy)

PSA

Vendors

What irks me more regarding the current Classifieds is sellers bumping their own posts constantly (every 12 hours or even less ); sellers stating "SOLD!!!" as a new post (thus bumping their no-longer-available listing to the top ) rather than simply editing their title/post #1; and all the inane ("Wish it was my size!", "Nice bike, bro!", etc., ) comments which do the same thing while also providing zero value.

Weight Weenies is a great model for a Classifieds format:
1) Sellers must post details, prices, AND photos.
2) NO comments, etc., are allowed (all questions/transactions are conducted via PM).
Very, very clean and elegant.
.
.

Originally Posted by Kontact

I don't know about most Paceline users, but I hit New Posts to check what's going on. And a lot of the time the majority of new posts are in the classifieds, and close to half of those posts are PSAs.