• The SH Membership has gone live. Only SH Members have access to post in the classifieds. All members can view the classifieds. Starting in 2020 only SH Members will be admitted to the annual hunting contest. Current members will need to follow these steps to upgrade: 1. Click on your username 2. Click on Account upgrades 3. Choose SH Member and purchase.
  • We've been working hard the past few weeks to come up with some big changes to our vendor policies to meet the changing needs of our community. Please see the new vendor rules here: Vendor Access Area Rules

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That honestly sounds more like the facebook groups to me. I don't want to be overly harsh - but if you're literally here to buy, sell, and ignore people maybe you're not really bringing value to the community here?

I have never said anything about only being here to buy and sell. Actually what I said about the Classifieds is that it brought me here to a great site. I'm clearly not ignoring anyone as I have responded to threads not on the classified site. Value is a very relative term. How are we judging how valuable someone is on this site? Am I more valuable than someone with no posts or started thread topics?

What makes you more valuable to the site than anyone else?

Just curious.
 
But why just charge to see classifieds? And why would someone pay to be in a contest where there is no prize?
Why is it so important to be rewarded with a prize for a contest that just for fun . Do we always have to win a prize or get something in return. Is 15 bucks really that much that we can't pay
it . The information on this site is alone well worth it.
 
I have no problem with someone charging money for a product. Supply and demand and free markets are American as apple pie.

I do have a concern though, and its just a business strategy concern. Charging for the classifieds may greatly reduce the participation in the classifieds, and therefore DEVALUE the classifieds, which is a major driver of subscriptions to this forum. It’s a delicate ecosystem. I hope the site owner gets the desired effects without devaluing his product.

I have ideas on how to achieve this that I’d be happy to share. Best of luck to all, Hope our community endures and the site owner gets their desired outcome
 
@Bchadwick1990 you said “the classifieds are clearly the sites biggest draw” I misspoke when I said you thought the classifieds were the ONLY reason people come here. I apologize for that. And I did read your entire post. As a matter of fact I read every word of every post on this thread. I still RESPECTFULLY disagree that the classifieds are the largest draw though. Taken one at a time Yes it’s clearly the biggest single forum. But This is a saddle hunting information sharing community. So when people come here they are looking for all kinds of info regarding saddle hunting. Not just platforms or sticks or whatever. So when you only use the classifieds forum totals and not all of the saddle hunting related forums totals for your numbers comparison I don’t think that’s apples to apples. Again like I said, just my 2 cents. You can disagree. This is what I like about this site. It’s okay to agree to disagree. Hence the word respectfully. Happy hunting and good luck this season.

I did use all of the "saddle hunting related forums" this time. I calculated every started thread for every forum and then got what percent the classifieds are. The classifieds make up 30% of the started threads on the entire website. If you could have Red send you the amount of views for each forum I am pretty positive the classifieds would win that as well, could be wrong tho.

Why is it a bad thing that the classifieds are a large draw to the webiste?

If you google "saddlehunter" the first thing that pops up is the website then underneath its two tabs, one for the Classifieds and one for the Store.
 
I have no problem with someone charging money for a product. Supply and demand and free markets are American as apple pie.

I do have a concern though, and its just a business strategy concern. Charging for the classifieds may greatly reduce the participation in the classifieds, and therefore DEVALUE the classifieds, which is a major driver of subscriptions to this forum. It’s a delicate ecosystem. I hope the site owner gets the desired effects without devaluing his product.

I have ideas on how to achieve this that I’d be happy to share. Best of luck to all, Hope our community endures and the site owner gets their desired outcome

According to most on this thread the Classifieds are not a "major driver of subscriptions to this forum" even when the numbers provided on the homepage prove it.
 
Ok @Bchadwick1990 my turn. This time you put words in my mouth. lol! I never said the classifieds were a bad thing! Buddy, I just disagree that it’s the biggest draw. That’s all I was saying. I like the classifieds. Now, I’m done with this and I’ve gotta go to work. So as I said. Happy hunting!
 
I've bought and sold a ton of stuff through this forum in the past ~4 months, all flawlessly executed. But the classifieds make up less than 25% of the value I receive from this forum, and that will decline as my gear setup stabilizes (that's the plan anyway, we'll see). As many have mentioned the $15 is a ridiculously low amount for an ad-free site with this level of quality discussion - and it doesn't apply if you just want to participate in the discussions. I'd pay the $15 even if I wasn't going to use the classifieds.
 
Really? Its ridiculous to have ads on a forum for non paying members? It's crazy to think that every App on your phone uses this as a blueprint. How many forums have you participated in? It's crazy to think that the one major reason people come back to this site is now being used to make money. Sounds more like a punishment...
Facebook has already become the go to place for saddle info and sales. This will put the last nail in the coffin.
The major reason people come to this site isn't the classifieds, It's the information and the people.
 
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