It's now about three months since the new ad thread rules were announced. I think it's time to ask whether they were an improvement or not. Personally I would say no, for reasons I'll list below, but I would be interested in hearing what other people have to say.
I find the advertising forums very boring now. I almost never read anything there. They used to be interesting.
More importantly, the old advertising threads were very useful to me in selecting escorts. The new ones are largely useless. You can learn quite a bit both about someone's English and about someone's personality from the boards. When I think about escorts I've really liked, most of them are ones I decided to visit partly because of their boards posts. And it was more often the replies rather than the original ad post. Of course escorts can still post to General Chat, but very few of them do.
The new rules are also a minor nuisance in two ways. I used to alert escorts, usually by pm, if I saw a problem with an ad, like a broken link for example. I quickly stopped doing this once the new rules came in, because there's not much the escort can do. She can't post a correction in a reply, and she can't post another thread for 24 hours. She could ask a mod to edit the post, but few of them do this. Also, I used to use the "reply" button even when I wanted to ask a question by pm rather than on the boards. It was very convenient; it gives you a window with the original message in quote tags, which you can then copy and paste into your pm. With the new system that no longer works.
So the new rules make the site less enjoyable and less useful for me. Is there any upside to them? As far as I can tell they were put in place at the request of two groups of people:
- escorts with very poor English, who were tired of losing business to escorts whose English is good enough to carry on an intelligent conversation, on the boards or in person.
- members, neither punters nor escorts, who never understood that this is an escort advertising site and who are shocked to see escorts advertising on it.
Maybe I'm missing something. If you like the new rules, and aren't in either of the two groups above, then please post why you think the new rules should be retained.
Ad thread rules.
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13-03-10, 11:22El GordoAd thread rules.
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13-03-10, 13:41Quarterpoundher
They are not intended nor need to be interesting or entertaining, they are for "advertising" services and not for entertainment.
I don't know who you are referring to as people who are neither client or escort as I have never seen any state they were shocked that an escort site has escort ads on it.
What sort of rubbish is that? I don't recall one person saying they were shocked to see ads on an escort site.
All I saw was mostly ads being used to attack the escort or post non service drival for page after page or else ads being kept on top by the escort or by lackies of hers with never ending "hey babe when you in town" posts. When she stated in black and white when she was in town on the same thread.
Its much fairer to all Escorts now and unless holy war about it goes on in the Escort forum as far as I know they are in the main happy with it. I already asked E-I a few weeks ago if they could ask in there how was it going and if happy, I don't know if E-I did that but at the end of the day its down to the Escorts to determine if it ends or not as its their advertising space that they are paying for and it was previously being massively abused by various people for various reasons ranging from innocent banter that had the effect of bumping the same ad right on through to people actively bumping ads for other reasons. -
13-03-10, 13:59El Gordo
You don't see escorts, qph. That's fine with me. I have no objection. But one consequence of this is that you don't always understand those of us who do. This is not purely mechanical. We do actually talk to the escorts. At least I do, and I assume most clients do. You say the ads are not meant to be interesting or entertaining. You are simply wrong. Some escorts are better at it and some are worse, but all escorts would like their ads to be both, because it suggests to prospective clients that the appointment itself will be similarly interesting and entertaining. In other words, that it will not simply be wanking with another person present. I don't blame you for not understanding this, but you should be willing to accept the fact.
Just to be clear, this thread is not an attempt to have a go at you or anyone else. It is an attempt to change the rule, or, at a minimum, to get a satisfactory explanation for it. -
13-03-10, 15:06Quarterpoundher
You are the one that said ads are no longer entertaining, that is I presume because that sometimes a bit of banter happened on an ad and that by definition requires more then one person IE the other posters.
The problem was that banter was causing unfairness to others who were not interested in banter or for any of many other reasons.
That being stopped is not stopping Escorts creating entertaining ad posts if they wish. There is also no reason why any of the escorts who did reply on ad threads in banter cannot do the same thing on the forum just as nothing stopping people who used to post on the ads having banter with her on forum.
The point is that ad section is exactly that, an ad section and is not a forum and ad section has to be maintained on an equal footing for all Escorts who are paying to use it.
Pls so not claim to know my understanding on this for me, you cannot know, do I say you do not understand a particular issue?
I understand what you mean perfectly well as if I was a punter and I have said this many times before I would base my choices on gauging a person on how she puts herself across in her posts and having some interaction with her first. I would not darken the door of a complete stranger in a million years without at least having some banter here.
But that does not require me or anyone from having to do that in ad section, it would be great if that section was not abused as it massively was but the fact is it was and if opened again the same would happen and at the end of the day the ones that would take part are the ones that take part out here and any smart escort would know that a few posts here are as good as any paid for advert in portraying herself as someone that most men want which is mainly someone friendly and engaging and up for a laugh.
They don't even need an ad if they are willing to take part out here. -
13-03-10, 16:55El GordoThe advertising forum is a forum. I get to it by going to the dark green bar and clicking "Forum", which takes me to http://www.escort-ireland.com/boards/forum.php. Patricia's post, announcing the new rules, was titled "Advert Forums Rules". So claiming it's not a forum is just silly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Quarterpoundher
There is no fairness issue. There never was. The rules were the same for all escorts before. The rules are the same for all escorts now. The issue is not fairness.Quote:
The problem was that banter was causing unfairness to others who were not interested in banter or for any of many other reasons.
Where was the massive abuse of the old system? People weren't playing "drop one, keep one" on it. For the most part, the replies to ads were relevant. You can see the list of threads in the Female Independent Escorts section, sorted by number of posts, here. The one for Touring Escorts is here. For anyone who doesn't want to bother following the links:Quote:
it would be great if that section was not abused as it massively was
- There were never many replies, compared to General Chat or Soap Opera.
- There was not any sudden increase before the rules were changed. Most of the threads with lots of replies were 2008 or earlier. You can see from the list below that almost all were for escorts who are now retired.
- There is nothing to suggest than any particular escort's ads were dominating the advertising forums. If you look at the twenty most replied ad threads, they were started by sexybabehere (77), Blondy (44), Busty Malena (42), Gabriela.Brazil (40), nikki (40), donna (40), Gabriella.Brazil (40), SEXY_SPAIN (37), Blondy (36), punkchick (36), Blond chick NIKKY (36), exclusive.emma (36), ennisneedslife (35), Miss X (35), xxsandraxx (34), Busty Carmen (32), Damien (32), Monica_3891 (30), Packo (30), and Mia (29).
You can also sort threads by the number of times they have been viewed. If you look through the 200 most viewed ad threads you will see that all of them are from before the rules changed. Escorts want people to read their ads. The new rules are clearly not working from that point of view. I don't know about Patricia, but if I were running an escort advertising site and people weren't looking at the ads then I would start to get worried. -
14-03-10, 15:06Quarterpoundher
It was not a forum as it was not subject to the same rules as in gen chat, what would never be deleted on gen chat was deleted in ad section.
IE if an escort who was being given a hard time on her paid for ad then it was within her rights as it was her ad paid for with her money to have it removed. The same thing said to her on gen chat if within the rules conduct would never be deleted.
Do you as the creator of a thread on gen chat have the right to have something deleted that is being critical of you??? No... but the escort could if someone was critical of her rates on the ad she had the right to have that removed as she did not have to put up with having to pay for an ad and have that said on it but the same thing said on gen chat would not be deleted so how can the two possibly be forums?.
Do you have to pay 250 euro a month to create a thread on gen chat??? No
Would you have been allowed to create a thread in any ad section if not an escort???. No
So to suggest that ad section was a forum just as gen chat is and subject to same rules is absolute nonsense, it never was for the simple reasons and examples I have outlined. -
14-03-10, 16:25El Gordo
Will someone please post something relevant to this thread?
If you want to deny that that ad forum is a forum, then fine. I don't care. Call it whatever the **** you want. That is not the issue.
There is a reason escort are paying for those ads. It's because they want people to read them. As I said in my last post, the rules changed in a way that make me much less likely to read them. From the list of threads, sorted by number of times viewed, which you can see here and here, it is clear that many other people are also not reading them much. I will say it again, since it seems not to have sunk in, of the 200 most viewed ad threads, all of them, without exception, are from before the rules changed. People are not reading the ad forums the way they used to, because they are no longer worth reading. That is the issue. -
14-03-10, 19:56Anna23So you are saying , that people don't look at the ad section as much as they used to because of the change of rules?Quote:
Originally Posted by El Gordo
Well, this cannot be good for an advertising site and for their paying advertisers.
Bytheway , I've looked at some of these old threads you posted a link to and I've noticed, that surprisingly the very same people who say there was a massive abuse via banter, are the ones who engaged in this banter regularly. I don't understand what is their problem now. And I don't care. What I would care about though as a paying advertiser, I would like my ads to be read and seen and I wouldnt expect new rules to be implied to avoid this. -
14-03-10, 22:44carlos marvadoThe purpose of all advertising is to create AIDA - Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action. Good advertising achieves this by content and presentation and of course an understanding of the target market. Escorts are completely free to determine advert content, layout or presentation and any associated pics and graphics. Of course some escorts will be better advertisers than others, but that's the nature of all life. The new rules simply ensure that advertising forums contain only adverts and not "love your new pics baby", " thanks honey", "welcome back, I can't wait to see you again", "thanks honey, I'm horny for you too" , bump, bump, bump. In my view, a good advert just loses it's potency if it's initial impact is followed by pages of drivel.....after reading through all that sh*te, I would have forgotten the important messages contained in the original advert. For this reason, I think the advertising forums are greatly improved now.Quote:
Originally Posted by El Gordo
Anybody wanting to find out more about an individual escort can pm her, call her, chat to her in the chatroom. Escorts do engage with the membership is General Chat or the Chatroom and on a 1 to 1 level via pm. Without this rule, we would have escorts creating secondary posting profiles to bump their advert threads (it happened in the past), getting others to do it for them, all sorts of non advertising banality littering those forums, escorts being attacked/harassed on their own advert threads, and maybe even a free for all bumping war if they were allowed to post as many times as they wished.
How many clients would complain that they could'nt get escorts to answer their phones?................maybe some of them would be just too busy posting and bumping........instead of bumping and grinding. -
14-03-10, 23:02carlos marvadoEasily explained. Every time somebody goes onto a thread to post on it/bump it, they also have to view it......so they are also upping the viewer figure. Then others who have already read the advertisement see that something new has been posted on the thread and go to have a read of it, and what to do learn?.........."Welcome back to Dublin baby, you were missed!".........adds nothing to the sum of human knowledge, so they swiftly move on to something else...........but their brief visit has been recorded under the viewing figures. The difference now is that people are actually looking at adverts, if that is what they wish to look at, and not a lot of chit-chat, banalities, bitching etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by El Gordo
Whilst I agree with you that the various Advertising Forums are forums in the sense of the word, but they are Advertising Forums and not Chat Forums or Request Forums......they are forums by which escorts communicate/advertise their service via advertising threads.
Just a final point. I'm sure that I looked at some advertising threads between 10 and 20 times. Usually this was to have a look at what was going on i.e. why the thread was so popular. What I found was banality, chit-chat, slagging, harassment etc. I hardly ever looked at an advert thread for the information contained in the advert itself. Often escorts attacked other escorts on their threads, or punters attacked escorts and then the escort attacked the punter back. Strangely enough, this was very helpful to me.......because the behaviour of some of these escorts ensured that I would not be contacting them.........so if you engage in advertising, make sure it is positive and that the message is not lost. -
14-03-10, 23:09lutherI'm sorry El Gordo, but that's a ridiculous argument..........Of course there are less views. It's because there is less on each thread to view...........Quote:
Originally Posted by El Gordo
A simple explanation of this...........
Under the old system, if I'm on line and an ad thread is posted I'm probably going to look at it........
If someone else posts on that ad thread, I'm probably going to look at it again..........
And if people post on that thread 20 times while I'm on line, every time that thread pops back up to the top because it has a new post on it, I'm probably going to view it...........
If there are 20 people online when this is going on and they all do the same as me, that's 400 views from 20 people..........
Now I've only actually only read the original ad post once, as will probably be the case with the other 20 people on line, so all the other views that you are pointing out are people viewing the other stuff on the thread, not the ad...........
Under the new system the same people, like me, are unlikely to view an ad thread more that once...........
That's why there is such a difference in the view count............ -
15-03-10, 09:29whiteknight111
Can't we all just get along
I sugest a comprimse
A limit on the number of global replies to each thread
A limit on number of indiivudual replies to each thread
A time limit before each thread is locked.
This would allow for a limited banter/discussion on a thread
without the adverse effects of bumping and such.
Not sure If techinhal speaking this is a big deal if it is then
I think the new rules are better than old rules.
:grouphug: -
15-03-10, 09:44El Gordo
So far three people have posted saying they like the new rules. All three are mods. Is this a coincidence? I don't think so. The rules were changed because the ad forums were a pain to moderate, not because of any desire to make things fairer for escorts.
Also I notice that no one replied to Anna's comment that "surprisingly the very same people who say there was a massive abuse via banter, are the ones who engaged in this banter regularly". She makes a very good point. See if you can identify the authors of the following posts:
Quote:
Or Lippy could just turn up at Team Gemma's office during any one of our many T breaks with a penguin bar in one hand and a Jaffa cake in the other and either Gem or Jill is show to take a nibble...
I'll just check the shedule and fit you all in......no bother....thats what you pay me for...
Quote:
Oh yeah....and we spend all our money on drink and escorts.Quote:
We dont have anything better to do.
We dont have jobs.
We dont have families.
Just as well we both have a sense of humour!
Well if Anna feels sorry for us, we'll just have to stop spending on escorts.
Hope that makes her happy again.
Well she had the measure of me ..... inch perfect.... and although the same thoughts were in my mind as you've suggested I couldn't quite fight my way through my tears of depression to type it out..........
Good to see you've stopped short of suggesting we not spend our money on beer though.....
Have to admit, that didn't even enter my mind.....
The last one isn't banter. It even makes a few good points. But is a lady's ad thread really a good place to ask people not to see escorts?Quote:
Step 1 - Punting Moratorium 1st to 30th May
D'ont know if this will have any affect at all, but if it's not tried, chances are change will take much longer to come about, if at all. Even if it does not succeed, there will be no excuse for punters whinging about prices in the future, when they could'nt be bothered to support an initiative to force prices down now.
Good prices for top-notch escorts is one thing, but a fixed market rate for every service provider that is artificially maintained is ludicrous. It's the equivalent of expecting fine wines and plonk to be sold at the same price or no differences in prices between haut couture and ordinary leisureware.
Strange thing is, it seems that some of the more experienced escorts are more amenable to being flexible on pricing. Maybe they understand the market better and can therefore read the writing on the wall.
The explanations given for the numbers of views sound plausible, until you look at the actual numbers. Yes, there are people who will read every reply to every thread when they are logged in, and this artificially increases the number of views. But there are only about 6 or 7 such people, judging by the number of posts and views on "drop one, keep one". The ad threads we're talking about typically have hundreds of views per post, so these people have very little effect. -
15-03-10, 09:50El GordoI think it shouldn't be difficult to set things up so that the we keep the advantages of the old system, without the very small amount of abuse which it generated. The question is just whether it's a priority or not. I would be interested to hear what restrictions people think would be reasonable. I would especially like to hear what escorts think, since it's their ads we're talking about.Quote:
Originally Posted by whiteknight111
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15-03-10, 22:35lutherPlease show me where in my post I said I liked the new rules???From what I can see most of the posts in this thread from mods are attempting to explain things to you...........Quote:
Originally Posted by El Gordo
And of the 200 odd views of this thread I don't see many others posting to complaind about the rules.......... -
16-03-10, 10:01El Gordo
And still no one who is not a mod has posted in favour of the new rules. Whiteknight suggested a compromise solution. It was always claimed that the new rules were brought in at the request of escorts, but the only escort who has posted is Anna, and she clearly doesn't like the new rules.
If you don't like the new rules, luther, then I'm sorry for saying that you do. I assumed that you wouldn't bother arguing with someone you agreed with. Thanks for clarifying that.
200 views, by the way, roughly means the thread is being read only by the people who will read anything. As I said, 6 or 7 views per post is about the minimum you get on E-I. I'm beginning to think I should have posted to General Chat instead, as this section tends to be very quiet. The real place this should be discussed is the private escort forum. It's their ads we're talking about, although obviously we have a right to an opinion as readers (or ex-readers in my case) of those ads. -
16-03-10, 10:48lutherAnd they don't seem to be queing up around the block to complain about them either................:rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by El Gordo
BTW, by the same token, I didn't say I didn't like the new rules either..........
Again, you're jumping to conlcusions.............. -
16-03-10, 10:51Quarterpoundher
Same here. I never said I liked the new rules either but they were regretfully needed.
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16-03-10, 17:29carlos marvadoWell I certainly recognise my post of April 2008 suggesting a punting moratorium for May 2008 in order to encourage a reduction in prices. I did'nt realise that I had posted it on an advertising thread, so I am assuming that there must have been some debate going on on that particular thread and that was my contribution to it. Apart from that, back then Luther and myself were two of the greatest piss-takers on this site (the Blankmann and Ploy of our day) and regularly went to town on threads when we found something amusing to comment on. However, when we became mods we were inform that there was to be no attacking of escorts on their own threads or piss-taking on them and we amended ourQuote:
Originally Posted by El Gordo
own behaviour and started to act responsibly. So that post of mine that you quote, predates me becoming a mod by 13 months and was about 20 months before the new rules were introduced.
You are correct in saying that the advertising threads were a pain in the arse to moderate at times, because when there was some major shit-stirring and rule breaking going on in General Chat and elsewhere, we were also having to deal with escorts posting multiple times on their own advert threads including some using duplicate posting profiles to ask themselves questions, people engaging in banal conversations that did'nt actually elicit any additional information about the escort or her services or availability, plus threads going totally off topic and the occasional case of the escort being harassed or having a virtual review of her posted on the thread. While we had the pain in the ass of dealing with this carry on, the actual complaints about it were being made by other escorts reporting posts on advertising threads......and these were not escorts with poor English (who actually don't or are not in a great position to make use of the forums) but fellow regular escort posters who objected to the manner in which the advertising forums were being abused. So it is not correct to state that the new rules were not introduced because of a desire to make things fairer for all escorts................you were not in the moderator's forum to see the amount of posts that were being reported on a daily basis. In fact, I think Anna23 fell out with some other escorts because she held them responsible for reporting some of the posts on her advertising threads.
The fact that so few people are contributing to this thread, is probably simply a factor of how few people are actually interested in this particular forum. It almost reminds me of the competition forum before Westie took it over and actually started to run some competitions there.
As to my views on the new rules, I think it's pretty obvious from my previous posts on this thread that I like them and I've given my reasons for liking them too. -
20-03-10, 12:38Patricia
Hi,
Sorry I didn't reply for so long. I have some catching up to do around here as I've been too busy on other issues to get onto many things.
I think there were a lot of problems with the Advert Forums before we made the changes. Most of these probably weren't seen as mods were dealing with them, removing posts etc, but there were many complaints etc.
I tend to think we should leave the rules as they now are re Advert Forums and work on encouraging escorts to take part in discussions and banter on other forums that are meant for discussion.
I am not however totally opposed to making changes if it is what the majority of escorts and clients want.
Pat x