discuss Marketplace - Never Ending Story, let's grab a coffee and talk. - Ideation

[zotix]

Dear NamePros,

The topic is most likely self-explanatory, but let's summarize our experiences without going too far Off-topic and try to make suggestions for the Mods, etc. Experienced and hardworking Devs will implement those requirements (If approved), e.g., dear @Paul ) I know Paul, you always argue against mine. You are often correct - but let's face it, something needs to be done to prevent things from happening - especially in the Marketplace, and that is not only a prediction; members of this Informative, Well-structured, and good Place to be will move.

Let's use this thread ONLY to give it a bit of structure and not go off-topic.

My Role in this Scenario was?:
Issue / Experience you had:
Do you have a positive outcome*?:
What would be a suggestion to improve**?*:

This topic might have been discussed more than once, and everyone knows it, but it's still hard to establish boundaries without losing traffic on NamePros.
From an economic point of view, this is the main trade-off.

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1*= I do not expect here to judge Mods that did not do their "job" correctly; this would lead the discussion to something I do not want - mainly because they can't force someone to pay/buy.

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2*= Try to describe something that is not probably from our (not developer) perspective but is generally easy to implement.

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I can start with things that I experienced:

My Role in this Scenario was?: I was the Seller
Issue / Experience you had: Someone bid on my Auction, was, unfortunately, a Scammer, and got suspended. Thus, my Auction got closed as far as I remember, but I was not able to exceed it or give the option to buy to someone else (Sorry if I understood it wrong, and it would be possible)
Do you have a positive outcome?: No, I lost the Auction Time and had to put the Domain again in the Marketplace
What would be a suggestion to improve?: This is already happening, from what I heard from @Paul - Prevent Fraudulent activities. From a technical point of view, it makes sense. You could probably check the User-agent attribute in case someone is with 2 Accounts online. (Would still not make any difference)


My Role in this Scenario was?: I was the Seller
Issue / Experience you had: The buyer is giving a Bid and has already put in about 80% Restrictions, but due to the Community Guidelines and, of course, not judging someone, it's not possible to "exclude" someone who has already had a negative experience with someone.
Do you have a positive outcome?: No, I lost the Auction Time and had to put the Domain again in the Marketplace
What would be a suggestion to improve?: This is already happening, from what I heard from @Paul - Prevent Fraudulent activities. From a technical point of view, it makes sense. You could probably check the User-agent attribute in case someone is with 2 Accounts online. (Would still not make any difference)


My Role in this Scenario was?: I was the buyer
Issue / Experience you had: The seller did not provide the information needed to open a Thread according to NamesPro Guidelines; for example, the "End time" was missing. He wrote to me during the auction to give me the option to buy the domain directly via lower BIN.
Do you have a positive outcome?: No, the seller is talking nonsense.
What would be a suggestion to improve?:

And this is now the main point I would like to address:

1. Set a "bar" for the Marketplace to reduce the manual effort of developers investigating fraudulent accounts (Implementation effort: low). That does not mean everybody should be a fully active Member, but at least 60 Posts within 30 Days (Spam excl.) would be a good starting Point. I mean, NP could also monetize it and allow the Marketplace only to people with a blue badge or something.
2. Unfortunately, many NP Accounts are traded on different platforms. Implement something to "block" (not delete) those accounts after 3-6 Months—and after that, set up a little manual process to verify. Ten years of Membership with ten stars looks trustworthy, and people are watching this and recognize it as a "trusted" User, like any other Badge. (Implementation effort: Low-Low-Medium)
3. Implement a hardcoded Template if you open a Thread in a specific section, Like - Domain Name, Registrar, Renewal Price, etc. - so a mandatory field MUST be filled in to open this Thread. It's not opening, and false information (defined with filters) could be extracted and automated put on hold (Implementation effort: Medium)
4. Domains priced over, let's say, 5000$: Need to verify their Ownership before posting. This is good for everyone; the only effort is on the Seller side - but this is low prioritized since they get a Pop-up Alert while entering the amount (Template for Fixed price, autodetect <5000$) - Mods would need to check and approve.
5. Structured Auction Approach: Sellers should decide, via a little script, what kind of category they want to start their auction in. I see a lot of misleading Sales Threads that are 1$ Increment to 25$ increment, 24 hours after the last Bid, within nothing or ten days.
6. Minimum Price (For any part of the Marketplace): I would appreciate the approach of GoDaddy; it's not comparable since "everybody here is a Wholesaler," but a minimum threshold would
7. Button for "Claimed" or "Push" or "WON": Why? Prevent spamming. Set a foundation (with the Claimed and Won Button); everybody should give at least (anonymously) a Rating to someone, optional with text.
8. Last but not least, and this is true of the topic: I have a Thread Count of 6 as a Gold Member; my Discussion Thread (probably also this one) will count into it, thus restricting me a bit to post, for example, 6 Sales Threads on the Marketplace, even though the "General Discussion about Domains"-Thread, had no conflict with Marketplace. ---Solution: Review the Mapping of the Allocation of the Counter

I'm aware that this is not the first Thread regarding this topic, but at some point, improvements, especially a healthy discussion, should be important.
I mean, from a technical POV, there would be many more things—but I am talking about implementing the so-called "low hanging fruits" without / less Dev. effort, and on a mid-term basis, decreasing the effort for everybody, Develop NamesPro even more.

Thank you for reading this.

I am happy to discuss this. Please do not forget to use the Template, ofc. you can add sentences, etc, afterward. But i would like to keep it a bit more structured, the outcome should be Low-Mid Implementations for Dev-Team, without spending that much cost, at least money - not human capital.

I would even be willing to help Valuantary to be the guy, transforming Business Requirements into Technical details.

Best regards,
zotix

 

[zotix]

Okay, we can also grab a beer - if coffee is not fine for you =)
Cheers
z

 

[zotix]

Push.