Posts Made By: Neil Barnett

Ok, I'm impressed by the work. I'm the one behind, busy running land solo here, busy with local sales on larger 'no ship' items, I will get this tried.
Now I'm motivated. Kind of anxious actually.  If this stuff works and AM stays this 'on it' with issues,  then it's going to be a much more pleasurable place to go.

Two ads.

Celestron Silver tops, ad 436454.
It all worked great here. I did a copy/paste for the body, some editing, easy on the pictures.

Big Shroud, ad 436457.
The text was great, all issues mentioned were OK.
I pushed the pictures on this one, still modest for this product to make sure it was well understood. I used 5 pictures: 3 at 500Kb, 1 at 600Kb, and 1 at 700Kb, all rounded UP in size. A little scary still but I got it with some effort.  The first run danced around with loading and finally froze the ad again. I had to exit IE. When I went back to AM, the ad was still in my personal classifieds listing in unconfirmed mode, with 3 of the five pictures loaded. I was then able to load the last two and successfully post. This is not a big issue since I don't intend to do an Andy S. pictorial or dissertation. However, the freezing screen can toss a newbie for a fit after putting in an extensive ad, and there's no way to know it is probably waiting for them in their personal classifieds listing.  I'm good with ME.

I used IE 11 on a two year old Dell dual processor desk top for this ad.  I'll try a similar size picture layout in Edge next time.
I'm older and comfortable with IE, many are. I do keep Edge and Firefox in that bottom bar thing and used edge sometimes.

I'm more impressed with follow up here, enough so now.
I've never facedbooked, never twitted, never gone there, use a flip phone, I don't text, use AOL mail....
I'm a little older, cranky, stiff set, and could probably ALMOST challenge Herb on that.  Keep up the good work here.

Most that have brought up the subject of the yellow announcements, agree with me. My approach to attempting to stay unbiased is to listen and let others initiate.
The yellow announcement of members re joining is old hat, something to wade through in the ads, and just give the appearance to more regular members as being Nothing other than fluff and fill to make AM look bigger and badder. They don't count toward the daily quantity of ads posted. HOWever, the Feature ads for Purchase are desired by most that go into that detail. Those that pay for a feature ad often comment on the snuffing aspect caused by the overpowering 'abuse' aspect of AM self posting yellow list. Those that DON'T buy the Feature ads comment on just skipping the whole list, largely due to the overpowering 'abuse' aspect of AM self posting yellow list. (the word 'abuse' had been volunteered more than once)    This is just a suggested thing to consider as appropriate to this string.  Newbies have brought up the yellow membership announcements as kinda nice, then the fecal material hits the circular aerator pretty quick.  

It is all nowhere near
as small as you make it appear
by sweeping it under a rug
I tried.

Commenting here CHAS eh, not that it was particularly helpful. Hope you liked the wording, or is that more a ROLO thing? You two get me crossed up, both older cranky stubborn close minded...
Pass on the reply above if you liked it. Let me know. I'm pretty much done here.

It really gives me a nitch the way it keeps going.

1. Replying with " that has been this way for years" is pretty bad considering that AM has been falling behind for years on it's top of the classifieds ladder.....
Make the relation

2. There are lots of things. They ad up. They can all be belittled to a show of head in the sand.

3. Specifics at hand: General approach is to Go to AM, Click the classifieds, Go to bottom of left column, Click view all,  wade through yellow highlight stuff. AM knows that, you honestly think AM announcements are made to hide in the MISC. postings? I went there, who's going there just to see that! It gets deeper but done here...

4. Typing is not my forte. The attention to technical issues has been exemplary. The other side of the coin has me busy with running some land solo. I have to prioritize and I'm done here all things considered.  put in your last comment, I'm sure you'll make it a good one from AM side.  I won't be making a point to bother now.  good luck.

Originally Posted by Greg Shaffer

#1 - "Its been this way for years" is a fact no more no less. New member announcements just aren't a factor for me especially when it is so easy to NOT see them.

#2 - There are things I don't particularly like in the way they work on every site I use including AM. You seem to be under the impression I have a dog in the hunt when it comes to AM.....I am a member same as you, no more, no less. Given 95% of the astronomy gear I own was purchased used via AM at considerable savings I will admit to being a fan of the site and do try to help out where I can such as beta testing, reporting problems, trying to help those who are confused or pointing out work arounds for issues (such as yours)

#3 - Your complaint re the yellow member announcements. Perhaps a picture will help. See the screen shot below taken when using the SAME "view all" ads function you describe. Note that I circled the functions I previously described. When I tell it to "view ALL" and set the "for sale" option I don't see a single membership announcement. when listing the ads. Its not perfect....you would need to also view using the "wanted" option to see everything but it DOES eliminate your complaint and is a viable work around. I use it myself pretty often because I too don't care about the membership announcements and am only interested in "for sale" ads.

#4 - I get its sometimes difficult to teach old dogs new tricks....I am one of those myself

Actually, that's kind of insulting. I don't need a picture, I know how it works. I occasionally use the limited search for just 'want' ads or 'sales' ads, but for rare specific purposes. For the far bigger picture I'm not hopping around. I recently responded to a want ad, I look at trades, I look at it all. The fact remains the general procedure for most is to do what I stated. Thank you for stating that YOU don't care for the announcement thing either, just like the vast majority don't and wade through them with the general procedure to just see all the ads. Give it a rest, at least please leave me out of the endless loop around the main idea in what seems to be a required last word. Please. Thank you.