Re: F&E Listing Dates

[Dennis W Heltzel <dheltzel at ccil_org>]

IMO, using "free" commercial facilities is less than optimal. They have to
make some money from the services they provide (I'm not implying they
should not) or they will go out of business, leaving the users standed. A
frequent method of making money is to insert ads into the pages or emails,
to sell the user information (even if they say they won't), or to start
charging for the service after some period of time.

A better method is the hobbyist-based service. This becomes a "labor of
love" after the initial excitement wears off, so the design must be low
maintenance. Fortunately, the current intersection of cheap processing
power, cheap broadband access and free software make this actually doable
now. For an example, I invite you to visit, use, and hopefully enjoy
http://www.fishroom.net. This site cost nothing but my time build and runs
off a server sitting in my dining room that is also used for a lot of
other things (email, mail lists, 14 other internet domains, family web
browsing,etc).

I'm a computer professional by day (database admin) and am very interested
in creating services for other fish hobbyists (for free, this is a hobby).
My main concern is that they are really useful. I certainly don't expect
to  get consensus from this group (has that ever happened ?), but I really
value feedback, especially suggestions for improvement.

I enjoyed Wright's "flight of fancy" and would welcome others like it. If
this is too off-topic, I can collect interested parties email and we can
take the discussions "off line". If this were a for-profit business, we'd
develop a "requirements specification" to guide the process, and get all
the interested parties to sign off on the spec before starting work.
That's pretty impractical here, so I'm basically experimenting with
different canned software and developing stuff as I go. If anyone fancies
themselves an asute web sevice critic, by all means let me know, I could
sure use opinions from others to guide me.

Dennis

The Cooks wrote:
>>gary l meyers wrote:
>>
>>>Just a thought -- mostly because of timeliness issues  --  why not set up
>>>a group on ehobbies.com  for aka members (maybe others too) for the Fish
>>>& Egg listings.  Maybe that would be too simple a solution -- anyone ever
>>>looked into it ?
>>
>>I, for one, have not. I will though.
>>
>>AKA adds a great deal of value to the F&E listings, and those benefits
>>should be applicable, in some fashion, to any new alternative system.
>>
>>Beside an enforceable "Code of Ethics" which can't be enforced against
>>non-AKA members, the work Bill Gallagher does to be sure we have accurate
>>names is hard to do on a system where the seller and buyer do all the
>>inputs. We don't want to contribute to name confusion, bad spelling and
>>all the other problems we typically have at local auctions.
>>
>>I hope I find a way that those factors can be covered.
>>
>>Wright
>>
>
>
> Why not set it up so that only AKA members can list for sale (good reason to join!!).  We
> already have an ID and password for the members only section and we could use that (or
> similar) password to log-in to list the fish.  Then,  have it so that anyone can buy.  This
> may be a good way to get others hooked --er interested ;-) in keeping killies.  This type
> of system would allow us to keep the "Code of Ethics" in place and enforceable.
>
> Just a thought.

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