Rotate sticky ad queues on busy sections

[Ivain]

so this is a suggestion that I'm not 100% sure about myself, but I came up with this together with Zeyion when I feared I might lose my position in the premade builds sticky threads.

As you might know, that section's stickies are basically dominated by the existing 5 build shops, and nobody else has had an option to get in there, because we just keep extending the ads.
Zeyion, for instance, has been waiting in queue for months now, and he's probably not the only one.

So here's the suggestion:

Instead of having people be able to extend their ads indefinitely, make it so that if you buy more time on top of the original amount you purchased, you're moved to the back of the queue instead of just extending it again.

The idea is that this way, people in queue have a chance to get their sticky threads up there eventually. However, us regulars won't have to fear that we might be blocked out, because we can afford much larger periods of time than those just starting out.

There would also have to be a maximum amount of time you're allowed to buy at once. I would say either half a year or a year.


As I said, I would like to hear people's thoughts on this, and I'm far from sure if this should be implemented, so don't bother slamming it. If all I see is people slamming it, I'll likely continue to support it, while if I see good reasons not to do this I might consider withdrawing the suggestion entirely.

 

[Ivain]

Welp, disagree by mick, nevermind guys XD.

Seriously though, I expected as much, I'm just curious what the rest thinks.

 

[Mick]

The massive queue times are unfortunate for users wanting a sticky, but I would consider them to just be a result of the prices being cheap and there only being a limited number of slots. What you're essentially currently suggesting is that we do not allow people to extend their advertisement, but if they do want another ad they'll have to recreate their ad and be at the back of the queue which may sound good in theory by providing more users an easier opportunity to get their sticky or banner out there, but it just moves the problem to a different place.

A minor thing that the current system of users extending their advertisement also does well is that during the time that they have to extend their ad it is still live on the site. Every time that a new person gets the opportunity to pay for an advertisement, that's up to 24 hours that no ad is being displayed which just slows down everyone else.

I recently got in touch with an admin of http://sythe.org to discuss a few plans I had for the future of MC-Market, and one of the topics that we ended up discussing was their method of handling advertisements. They created their own system for selling banners (and maybe stickies, not 100% sure) which can be explained best as being like the minecraftservers.org sponsored slots. If a user wants to have an advertisement they can put in bids each month and the top bid wins. This way of doing it not only guarantees that MC-Market makes the most it possibly can from an advertisement spot, but it also means that each month any user can win the next slot and they don't have to wait in a queue. The person who wants the slot the most and can pay the most gets it.

I'm not saying that this system would solve the problems you brought up in the thread, but it would reduce wait times. If not this, other temporary solutions would be that we either raise the price of ads in popular forums like we have done in the past, or we can allow more than 5 stickies in any particular forum, which is the idea that I like the least.

Let me know what you think of this. If the bidding system is actually something that you think is a viable solution I will contact the ads manager developer and commission him for it.

(wow, I think this is the longest response to a suggestion I've ever posted. Justis would be proud)

 

[Ivain]

No, the bidding system would just mean that people with another source of income get to dominate it. Say, someone runs a buildteam, they could dominate the stickies every time, not really solving a problem. It would also result in much the same situation as we have now, with the biggest shops or people with the biggest resources permanently dominating the stickies.
Raising prices again is something for the future. right now, it's still the same, but it's only been a short while since the last price increase, so people running their shops are not even 100% sure if they can continue to profit or not.
Increasing prices again comes with the same problem, which is the people with the most resources permanently dominating the ads. From some perspective this may not be a bad thing, but it means that there's little chance for variation.
As for extra spots, I agree that with stickies thats the least ideal option.

If it turns out this is a bad thing, I'd rather not have any changes at least until summer.

Speaking of which, the sidebar ads are almost always full as well, right? That seems like a place where one or two more spots might not be terrible.

 

[Zeiyon]

The massive queue times are unfortunate for users wanting a sticky, but I would consider them to just be a result of the prices being cheap and there only being a limited number of slots. What you're essentially currently suggesting is that we do not allow people to extend their advertisement, but if they do want another ad they'll have to recreate their ad and be at the back of the queue which may sound good in theory by providing more users an easier opportunity to get their sticky or banner out there, but it just moves the problem to a different place.

A minor thing that the current system of users extending their advertisement also does well is that during the time that they have to extend their ad it is still live on the site. Every time that a new person gets the opportunity to pay for an advertisement, that's up to 24 hours that no ad is being displayed which just slows down everyone else.

I recently got in touch with an admin of http://sythe.org to discuss a few plans I had for the future of MC-Market, and one of the topics that we ended up discussing was their method of handling advertisements. They created their own system for selling banners (and maybe stickies, not 100% sure) which can be explained best as being like the minecraftservers.org sponsored slots. If a user wants to have an advertisement they can put in bids each month and the top bid wins. This way of doing it not only guarantees that MC-Market makes the most it possibly can from an advertisement spot, but it also means that each month any user can win the next slot and they don't have to wait in a queue. The person who wants the slot the most and can pay the most gets it.

I'm not saying that this system would solve the problems you brought up in the thread, but it would reduce wait times. If not this, other temporary solutions would be that we either raise the price of ads in popular forums like we have done in the past, or we can allow more than 5 stickies in any particular forum, which is the idea that I like the least.

Let me know what you think of this. If the bidding system is actually something that you think is a viable solution I will contact the ads manager developer and commission him for it.

(wow, I think this is the longest response to a suggestion I've ever posted. Justis would be proud)

Creating a bidding system wouldn't really help anyone. It would only make the rich, richer. If I have more money to spend on ads than someone who just started his business, he would have no chance of winning.
If the bidding system is put in place, it will cause the same problem. The current sticky threads will always be the ones with the most money (unless you make money from somewhere else like Ivain said) and they would always win the bids. It would destroy competition, which isn't a good thing.
What we suggested isn't the perfect plan, but it's better than having a bidding war. This way, if you have a lot of money you can buy ads for a long time, but it also gives the other businesses a chance.

 

[Hannes]

The massive queue times are unfortunate for users wanting a sticky, but I would consider them to just be a result of the prices being cheap and there only being a limited number of slots. What you're essentially currently suggesting is that we do not allow people to extend their advertisement, but if they do want another ad they'll have to recreate their ad and be at the back of the queue which may sound good in theory by providing more users an easier opportunity to get their sticky or banner out there, but it just moves the problem to a different place.

A minor thing that the current system of users extending their advertisement also does well is that during the time that they have to extend their ad it is still live on the site. Every time that a new person gets the opportunity to pay for an advertisement, that's up to 24 hours that no ad is being displayed which just slows down everyone else.

I recently got in touch with an admin of http://sythe.org to discuss a few plans I had for the future of MC-Market, and one of the topics that we ended up discussing was their method of handling advertisements. They created their own system for selling banners (and maybe stickies, not 100% sure) which can be explained best as being like the minecraftservers.org sponsored slots. If a user wants to have an advertisement they can put in bids each month and the top bid wins. This way of doing it not only guarantees that MC-Market makes the most it possibly can from an advertisement spot, but it also means that each month any user can win the next slot and they don't have to wait in a queue. The person who wants the slot the most and can pay the most gets it.

I'm not saying that this system would solve the problems you brought up in the thread, but it would reduce wait times. If not this, other temporary solutions would be that we either raise the price of ads in popular forums like we have done in the past, or we can allow more than 5 stickies in any particular forum, which is the idea that I like the least.

Let me know what you think of this. If the bidding system is actually something that you think is a viable solution I will contact the ads manager developer and commission him for it.

(wow, I think this is the longest response to a suggestion I've ever posted. Justis would be proud)

I personally don't think the bid-part or the idea about raising the prices is a good way to solve this. Right now almost every shop can afford a sticky in their section but you'll have to wait for so long to get a slot, I think that Ivain's idea seems more fair because otherwise it'll just end up being the shops that earn $70 a commission that will take up all the slots all the time, for example, I don't earn more than $15 every time I sell a banner which means that I can't afford to pay $50 and upwards for a slot for a week just because someone else has got lots of funds and can do it.

 

[Jack]

I think the bidding system would be a great solution to the problem.
I see some of you guys saying that it'll "make the rich richer", but that's the point of advertising. If you're only willing/able to pay a maximum of $10/week for an advertisement slot, when there's 10 other people willing to pay double that rate, why the hell should you get an ad slot?
The slots are meant to benefit the seller and MC-Market, and the potential for doubling MCM's sticky profit (since I'm sure the bidding will well-exceed $20/week in some sections) is very real. Then that can be used to improve the site.
Furthermore, stickies in unpopular sections will be very cheap, which could promote users to expand into those areas and create a larger market for them.

 

[Zeiyon]

I see some of you guys saying that it'll "make the rich richer", but that's the point of advertising.

No, the point of advertising is not to make rich people richer. It's to promote something (business). By making the already rich businesses richer, it will stop competition, which is not what we want. (the build shops).

The slots are meant to benefit the seller and MC-Market, and the potential for doubling MCM's sticky profit (since I'm sure the bidding will well-exceed $20/week in some sections) is very real. Then that can be used to improve the site.

Yes, I agree with you, this will help MCM and the seller. Not the buyer though. Other than that, I agree with you that more profit is better for MCM.

Furthermore, stickies in unpopular sections will be very cheap, which could promote users to expand into those areas and create a larger market for them.

I don't think Mick will make the starting bid that low. I think he wants to keep it at the normal rate, and you can bid higher. If it does start very low, it really could help me dominate in the other sections aswell.

 

[Mick]

No, the point of advertising is not to make rich people richer. It's to promote something (business). By making the already rich businesses richer, it will stop competition, which is not what we want. (the build shops).

Let me go back to my server list analogy. If minecraftservers.org had a system where you could pay $1000 per month to get your server featured but once your month is over you had to go back to the queue would you think that is a better system? It's not about making the rich businesses richer, it's about allowing the most successful businesses with a great product the ability to win the slot over a product without as much money invested into it.

If 5 build shops are the best build shops and make the most money, they should get the opportunity and ability to always have the sticky advertisements because they must then deal with the most clients.

If we wanted to stop the rich from getting richer on MC-Market the best thing we could do to stop a monopoly is to remove thread stickies entirely to give everyone equal opportunities, but that's not gonna happen any time soon because there is nothing wrong with the rich getting richer if they're doing so by selling a good product.

Yes, I agree with you, this will help MCM and the seller. Not the buyer though. Other than that, I agree with you that more profit is better for MCM.

I don't think that this hurts the buyer, but then again my experience on MCM is probably in different forums than you or Ivain. My perspective is that it would be better for the buyers who can now extremely easily see which build shops have invested the most of their own money into growth and have the most faith in their products that they are selling. It is now much easier to see that the person who bid the most got the best sticky slot and they then get a leg up on the competition from that.

I don't think Mick will make the starting bid that low. I think he wants to keep it at the normal rate, and you can bid higher. If it does start very low, it really could help me dominate in the other sections aswell.

Right now the way we have stickies set up is that they're different prices per week to make other forums have more sticky purchases. In hosting it is $30 per week so with the bidding system that is probably what we'd set the minimum bid to. Same goes for building which is $15 I think and recruitment and staff which is $5.

If someone is willing to pay more for a sticky than someone else, I believe it makes sense for them to get that sticky.

 

[Zeiyon]

Let me go back to my server list analogy. If minecraftservers.org had a system where you could pay $1000 per month to get your server featured but once your month is over you had to go back to the queue would you think that is a better system? It's not about making the rich businesses richer, it's about allowing the most successful businesses with a great product the ability to win the slot over a product without as much money invested into it.

If you can spend $1,000 into a slot, shows that your server isn't a bad server and you have invested quite a bit into it. And I don't believe at all, that someone who buys a $1000 ad slot will have a really bad setup.
Let's say, for example, MinePlex has a lot of money and wins the bidding. They will then make back a lot of the money and win again. While the competitors didn't win, so they didn't make anywhere near that amount.
Also, I disagree with the Minecraftservers.org analogy. Since servers have other websites, youtubers and much more ways to advertise and make money. For us, it's just MCM. We don't really have any other way of making money from our build-store, unless you want us to move to competitor sites. Imagine that there is no other way for a server to advertise, other than Minecraftservers.org. Don't you think the ones with the top slot will always have the most money? Thus they will always stay there.

I don't think that this hurts the buyer, but then again my experience on MCM is probably in different forums than you or Ivain. My perspective is that it would be better for the buyers who can now extremely easily see which build shops have invested the most of their own money into growth and have the most faith in their products that they are selling. It is now much easier to see that the person who bid the most got the best sticky slot and they then get a leg up on the competition from that.

Yes, but the current sticky build-stores make the most money, compared to other build-stores. If I have a better store than the ones that are currently sticky, but I don't have more money than those stores, I can't win. Thus, my store will always be not as noticed as the sticky ones.

Right now the way we have stickies set up is that they're different prices per week to make other forums have more sticky purchases. In hosting it is $30 per week so with the bidding system that is probably what we'd set the minimum bid to. Same goes for building which is $15 I think and recruitment and staff which is $5.

Yea, that's what I was saying. Jack said that the starting bid for all the forums would be quite low, so you could buy ads in different forums, since it would be so cheap.

If someone is willing to pay more for a sticky than someone else, I believe it makes sense for them to get that sticky.

Yes, I agree with that. And I agree that the bidding system would be much better than the current system. But, I still believe that our system would do a bit better than the bidding system.

 

[Rgamer065]

Its kinda a good idea in my opinion

 

[Ghast]

I completely disagree with Mick suggestion for a bidding system. Nowadays, society is supposed to be EQUAL for the rich and the poor. We are all humans but the fact that some people can’t afford the high bidding stickies makes it look like the old society.
I believe everyone should have the right to have a banner for the standard price without having to wait a year.
Best regards
Ghast.

 

[Satelliting]

I completely disagree with Mick suggestion for a bidding system. Nowadays, society is supposed to be EQUAL for the rich and the poor. We are all humans but the fact that some people can’t afford the high bidding stickies makes it look like the old society.
I believe everyone should have the right to have a banner for the standard price without having to wait a year.
Best regards
Ghast.

No one has a right to being able to advertise on here for the same price as companies who would be willing to pay more for the same spot. If I was a company, and I was willing to give Mick $100 for an ad slot, but Mick said no I had to wait a year but only had to pay $10 like everyone else, I'd be pissed. MCM is a company more than an organization or community. The goal is to make money, not be fair or give people rights they don't otherwise have.

 

[Mick]

In the long-term we're looking at introducing a bidding system to some of the busier sections of the site. If someone wants to pay more for the slot than someone else then I see no reason why we shouldn't do that. It benefits the site and people willing to invest the money into their business. It may not be the most fair way but at the end of the day we are a marketplace.

Denied, thanks for the suggestion.