Add-on Working on a 'classifieds' add-on...

[Stuart Wright]

I would like to contribute to the discussion about development of this classifieds addon.
We have run classified adverts at AVForums.com for over 10 years and they are very busy
Classified Adverts | AVForums
The are fundamentally threads with modifications which restrict who can post, enhance the new thread form and then manage the adverts.

We have several addons for our classifieds:
By Chris Deeming:
AVForums.com - Age Restrictions 1.0.1. Stop people from posting in the classifieds if their age is less than 18 years old. Minors can not enter into a legally binding contract, so it's unwise to allow them to trade. The age given in forums and social media is not verifiable or reliable, but it's better than nothing.

AVForums.com - Archive Threads 2.0.0 BETA 3. Allows members to archive their own threads (adverts) to a specific archive forum. Also automatically archives threads from classified forums into the archive forum after a certain number of days of inactivity (replies).

AVForums.com - Create Thread Text 1.0.4. Changes the text of the New Thread button on a per forum basis.


AVForums.com - Custom Thread Fields 1.0.7. Allows us to create new fields in the New Thread form. Some fields are just text. Some are required ('I agree' type checkbox). Some appear in the form and the first post of the new thread. Some only appear in the post.
Here is a video I just made to show the custom fields form.

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AVForums.com - Limit Threads Per Forum 1.1.0. Stops people from having more than one advert at a time in certain forums

and also
XenCentral Framework 1.3.5.2 Required for…
XenCentral Trading System 1.6.2 Trader ratings

I have plans to monetise our forums by charging members to place more than one advert in the same forum (the first is always free), stick threads, show them on a classifieds home page and also feature them on the sidebar widget.
I also plan to allow commercial organisations to place adverts with a charge.
I think that cherry picking the best, relevant features from www.gumtree.co.uk is perhaps a good idea.
Thanks

 

[empire]

@Stuart Wright It seems as if you have had a lot of custom work done. Are these add-ons available to the public? Our needs are very similar. We currently have around 9,000 classifieds on our vb forum, and I'm hoping that xf will give us the opportunity to improve them.

I really look forward to seeing a demo/beta of this add-on, or even just some comments from the people who are testing it out now.

 

[Stuart Wright]

@Stuart Wright It seems as if you have had a lot of custom work done. Are these add-ons available to the public? Our needs are very similar. We currently have around 9,000 classifieds on our vb forum, and I'm hoping that xf will give us the opportunity to improve them.

I really look forward to seeing a demo/beta of this add-on, or even just some comments from the people who are testing it out now.

Chris developed those addons for us before we migrated from vB3 so that we could keep our existing classifieds functionality and improve on it. At the time we were both very short of time, and simply didn't get round to releasing them. Now his time is in even shorter supply, so it's unlikely to happen.
It takes considerable effort to support addons and if they are only generating a few quid, then there is little motivation.
And like takeaway pizza has settled in the market with a vastly inflated price, addons have settled in the market for peanuts. Which is good for the growth of Xenforo, but bad for quality developers who can command far higher return for their skills.
A good classifieds addon like I hope this will be *should* sell for 10 or 20 times what it will actually go on sale for.

 

[RDR]

I really look forward to seeing a demo/beta of this add-on, or even just some comments from the people who are testing it out now.

I'm testing it out now on my dev board.

So far, so good with some very nice features with regards to creating custom advert types (For Sale, Wanted, Exchange, Business Listing, etc) and packages where you can specify duration, fee structure, etc:

 

[Mr. Goodie2Shoes]

So far, so good with some very nice features with regards to creating custom advert types (For Sale, Wanted, Exchange, Business Listing, etc) and packages where you can specify duration, fee structure, etc:

Some pictures from the public view would be nice

 

[Mr. Goodie2Shoes]

AVForums.com - Age Restrictions 1.0.1. Stop people from posting in the classifieds if their age is less than 18 years old. Minors can not enter into a legally binding contract, so it's unwise to allow them to trade. The age given in forums and social media is not verifiable or reliable, but it's better than nothing.

That can be enforced by adding an option to limit posting of classifieds...

AVForums.com - Archive Threads 2.0.0 BETA 3. Allows members to archive their own threads (adverts) to a specific archive forum. Also automatically archives threads from classified forums into the archive forum after a certain number of days of inactivity (replies).

Adverts can have en expiry date that once expired the advert will be pushed at the bottom of the listing...

AVForums.com - Create Thread Text 1.0.4. Changes the text of the New Thread button on a per forum basis.

Not needed for here I guess

AVForums.com - Custom Thread Fields 1.0.7. Allows us to create new fields in the New Thread form. Some fields are just text. Some are required ('I agree' type checkbox). Some appear in the form and the first post of the new thread. Some only appear in the post.

Custom fields are here

AVForums.com - Limit Threads Per Forum 1.1.0. Stops people from having more than one advert at a time in certain forums

That can be done... adding it to my todo list... will come in handy

XenCentral Trading System 1.6.2 Trader ratings

This add-on will have its own rating system so XC's one wont be needed for our users

I think that cherry picking the best, relevant features from www.gumtree.co.uk is perhaps a good idea.

I think someone else also suggested to look at this site

I really look forward to seeing a demo/beta of this add-on, or even just some comments from the people who are testing it out now.

Instead of working on a demo I am putting all my time in the development. Hopefully the testers will give out some sneak peeks and if possible their test board.

I hope this will be *should*

I do have plans to make it as good as possible. It's still in the rough and hopefully we can beat the world in the long run

 

[Stuart Wright]

Adverts can have en expiry date that once expired the advert will be pushed at the bottom of the listing...

Moderators need to remove adverts (threads) regularly from the main forums (into the archive) because they break the rules in some way. Threads in the archive are visible but people may not reply.
I think we need a way to remove adverts from the 'live' listings so that they do no turn up in the advert searches.

This add-on will have its own rating system so XC's one wont be needed for our users

We couldn't adopt your addon unless we could import existing feedback from XenCentral. There are over 300,000 records if I remember correctly.
Will you feedback system allow for comments and replies? The ebay feedback system will be familiar to most people and we should have at least the features of that.

 

[Mr. Goodie2Shoes]

We couldn't adopt your addon unless we could import existing feedback from XenCentral. There are over 300,000 records if I remember correctly.
Will you feedback system allow for comments and replies? The ebay feedback system will be familiar to most people and we should have at least the features of that.

The rating system will work in two ways: Manual & Automatic

• For manual, it would be the same as XC's add-on: users can rate each other without selecting any classified.
• For automatic, when the advertiser marks the classified as "completed" a modal will pop up to rate the other party and an alert will be dispatched to the other party to rate the advertiser and the rating will be associated with the classified

The rating will have their own dedicated page and members will be able to discuss there...
EDIT: owh... and there will be an importer

Threads in the archive are visible but people may not reply.

People will be able to comment or post in the thread if the thread isn't automatically closed... but users wont be able to directly contact the advertiser...

I think we need a way to remove adverts from the 'live' listings so that they do no turn up in the advert searches.

I didn't get that

 

[Stuart Wright]

Some time ago I created a specification for a classifieds addon.
I have attached it.

One thing implemented recently in XenCentral Trader is a restriction on feedback.
We require feedback to be between two people who have both posted in a thread and one of them must have started it.
But we have many complaints from people who left feedback but never received any back.

So now if member A leaves feedback for member B, member B gets a notification, but that feedback remains in a status of 'pending' until member B also leaves feedback for member A. At that time both members receive their feedback.

Will your addon accommodate this?

 

[empire]

The ratings system sounds really nice.

Currently finished deals and expired threads get moved to an archive. The archive is searchable because people might want to look up their thread or they may want to look through old listings to find what the going rate is for a certain item. Keeping them in a separate archive means that they don't show up in search results. From what you've said, it sounds like expired listings just go to the end, but would still show in search results. Is that the case?

We also have a separate archive where staff move threads that are problematic. This archive is only viewable by staff. Would something similar be possible in this system? Or would it be possible to mark an ad as moderated and have staff be able to search the moderated ads only?

 

[Mr. Goodie2Shoes]

So now if member A leaves feedback for member B, member B gets a notification, but that feedback remains in a status of 'pending' until member B also leaves feedback for member A. At that time both members receive their feedback.

hmm... I haven't thought of it... was just going for an one time alert... maybe there can be a dashboard and a persistent to-do list in the dashboard and a balloon will show up just like alerts and inbox. The user will get annoyed and eventually complete the task

A little more work but is certainly doable

 

[Mr. Goodie2Shoes]

We also have a separate archive where staff move threads that are problematic. This archive is only viewable by staff. Would something similar be possible in this system? Or would it be possible to mark an ad as moderated and have staff be able to search the moderated ads only?

Moderators has the ability to unapprove an ad which will remove it from public view... and the list can be viewed from XenForo's default Moderation Queue page...

From what you've said, it sounds like expired listings just go to the end, but would still show in search results. Is that the case?

Yes Though I am going to include an option in the search form to exclude expired, completed and closed classifieds...

 

[empire]

It would be nice if it would exclude them by default, and only show the option to search expired/completed/closed classifieds on the advanced search page.

 

[Mr. Goodie2Shoes]

It would be nice if it would exclude them by default, and only show the option to search expired/completed/closed classifieds on the advanced search page.

Roger that!

 

[RDR]

We also have a separate archive where staff move threads that are problematic. This archive is only viewable by staff. Would something similar be possible in this system? Or would it be possible to mark an ad as moderated and have staff be able to search the moderated ads only?

The categories in the system can have usergroup permissions assigned so you could set up a cat for staff to move into and out of.

 

[Mr. Goodie2Shoes]

Some time ago I created a specification for a classifieds addon.
I have attached it.

Thanks! I will have a thorough reading tonight... I skimmed file and looks like most of the stuff have already been implemented or in my to-do list

 

[jakew009]

We have a fairly extensive classifieds system on our website (www.thefarmingforum.co.uk) but we decided to implement it as a separate app that talks to Xenforo rather than as an add on.

The classifieds site can be seen here: The farming forum classifieds: Farm machinery for sale

Main features:

- login / registration integration.
- extensive search parameters
- optimised advert creation process to get all the information required
- extensive 'dealer' features for our commercial members
- forum integration (threads automatically created when an advert is posted)
Ie. Machinery For Sale - Private Listings | The Farming Forum
- extensive backend allowing classifieds team to manage things

We have many other features planned and felt that a separate app was the easiest way of building it.

 

[popr]

We have a fairly extensive classifieds system on our website (www.thefarmingforum.co.uk) but we decided to implement it as a separate app that talks to Xenforo rather than as an add on.

The classifieds site can be seen here: The farming forum classifieds: Farm machinery for sale

Main features:

- login / registration integration.
- extensive search parameters
- optimised advert creation process to get all the information required
- extensive 'dealer' features for our commercial members
- forum integration (threads automatically created when an advert is posted)
Ie. Machinery For Sale - Private Listings | The Farming Forum
- extensive backend allowing classifieds team to manage things

We have many other features planned and felt that a separate app was the easiest way of building it.

What software are you using?

 

[popr]

I would like to contribute to the discussion about development of this classifieds addon.
We have run classified adverts at AVForums.com for over 10 years and they are very busy
Classified Adverts | AVForums
The are fundamentally threads with modifications which restrict who can post, enhance the new thread form and then manage the adverts.

We have several addons for our classifieds:
By Chris Deeming:
AVForums.com - Age Restrictions 1.0.1. Stop people from posting in the classifieds if their age is less than 18 years old. Minors can not enter into a legally binding contract, so it's unwise to allow them to trade. The age given in forums and social media is not verifiable or reliable, but it's better than nothing.

AVForums.com - Archive Threads 2.0.0 BETA 3. Allows members to archive their own threads (adverts) to a specific archive forum. Also automatically archives threads from classified forums into the archive forum after a certain number of days of inactivity (replies).

AVForums.com - Create Thread Text 1.0.4. Changes the text of the New Thread button on a per forum basis.
View attachment 110915

AVForums.com - Custom Thread Fields 1.0.7. Allows us to create new fields in the New Thread form. Some fields are just text. Some are required ('I agree' type checkbox). Some appear in the form and the first post of the new thread. Some only appear in the post.
Here is a video I just made to show the custom fields form.

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For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

AVForums.com - Limit Threads Per Forum 1.1.0. Stops people from having more than one advert at a time in certain forums

and also
XenCentral Framework 1.3.5.2 Required for…
XenCentral Trading System 1.6.2 Trader ratings

I have plans to monetise our forums by charging members to place more than one advert in the same forum (the first is always free), stick threads, show them on a classifieds home page and also feature them on the sidebar widget.
I also plan to allow commercial organisations to place adverts with a charge.
I think that cherry picking the best, relevant features from www.gumtree.co.uk is perhaps a good idea.
Thanks

I appreciate the information, but why post all the details of each module including version numbers if it's never going to be available to the public?

 

[Stuart Wright]

I appreciate the information, but why post all the details of each module including version numbers if it's never going to be available to the public?

Easiest to C+P from the list of addons.