Classifieds, Whats up with them?

There are persons on the Buy&Sell forum who don't want to buy and don't want to sell. They want you to stop and look at a picture of their bike or read something about them that has to do with what they already bought or what they are thinking of buying. They want your advice or your opinion regarding their decision or lack thereof. This is a sort of nether category under the general heading of Classified Ads. Its sort of like a "Personals section for consumers without Ann Landers prosideing." A kind of call in radio talk show for consumers of VFR motorcycles and their subsidiary parts that has morphed onto the web. These people are looking for psychological support, understanding and someone to tell them that they got a good deal.

I have not been a member of VFRWORLD for very long but I can tell you that I have had a great time in the short while since I joined. However there was a practical reason for my joining, that was that I bought an old and broken down VFR. I needed help. And I needed parts. I wasn't on line to socialize. I was on line to get the bike running. And if there was socializing along the way so be it. I hit the technical forums pretty much first and I could not download any of the manuals. My son, who also ownes a VF,couldn't either, and he is far more internet literate than I am. So I was stymied there. I went to the classified ad section and tried my hand at placing ads for parts and that kind of crashed and burned too, but I kept at it. I got a hold of a manual through another source and I was off figuring out what was wrong with my 86. It took about a day after getting the manual to get the bike started and I learned a lot about the electrical system and the ignition/fuel pump circuits. When I came back to the computer to try my luck at scrounging the parts (mostly plastic stuff) I got sucked up into another guys problem getting an old VFR to start and run. I threw all I had just learned about the pump circuit and then some at him, and subsequently got dragged along for the rest of the ride until he got the bike running. It was great fun to help another person doing much the same thing I was doing. But at the same time I was trying to buy a new suit for my clothes to replace my old bikes tatters. I soon found that the "Classified" ads was not where the action was at. The action was on the "Buy&Sell" forum. Or maybe it was on both. But I sort of switched from the 'classified' ads to the Buy&Sell Forum. It appeared to me that deals for parts were being made on the Forum rather than in the classified section. The forum was a kind of hybrid sales platform. So I ended up on a thread started by a member who advertized his bike for sale as a builder/parts bike. When I looked at it the thread had two replies. One from a member telling him to not part it out but to rebuild it and the other from a member who called "dibs" on the seat. That made me call dibs on the taillight cowl/faring. And soon there were four people calling out parts they wanted. I got into a confused exchange with one of them because of semantics. And then the whole thing got messed up - but I don't want to bore you with those details, because at the same time I had joined the thread of another member just above or below the one started by the guy selling a parts bike. This other thread in the "Buy&Sell" forum was being used for a completely different purpose than Buy&Sell. It was being used to determine value ( cash, ego, self worth, envy, pride, what ever the guy could squeeze out of the thread). He had purchased a VFR and he was asking anybody in VFRworld if they thought he had gotten a good deal. My reactions to such a question are there if you want to see them. But I thought the question was weird and absurd given the fact that this was a forum for buying and selling bikes, and parts of bikes and offering services or directing buyers or sellers to those services, etc. This guy wanted to talk about what a great deal he had made. It was exaggerated buyers remorse mixed in with the surge of the market place. And I suddenly realized that you don't want buyers starting threads about whether or not they made a great deal. All such threads need to go to their own special category. "Post Purchase Depression Personal Ads" which can be conjoined with "Superlative Comparison Personal Ads". So there needs to be a place where you can take those people and tell them how nice what they bought themselves was and how good they should feel about it, that is away from the frey of the buyers and sellers.
After my first exchange with the guy trying to get reassurance that he had made a good deal it got to be a joke, this guy seriously asking nobody in particular if he had made a great deal, and even more strange because it turned out that he knew the guy he was buying the bike from in the first place. When I questioned the great deal he had gotten he defended the seller as if he were beyond reproach. So don't ask me to be the moderator of these Personals.

There seems to be a need to define the Classified ad's function and the Buy&Sell Forum's function as distinct from the General VFR forum function.

 

WORD!:unsure:

 

Dude, you worry too much about things that don't matter. If you don't like the forum, got to a different one or start your own. Here is a better idea. Go ride a motorcycle!

 

Get your motor runnin'

Head out on the highway. Lookin' for redemption in whatever comes your way.

YOU, Gatekeeper , are exactly on the "money"??? (if you'll pardon the pun on the guy asking nobody in particular's opinion if he got a got a good deal). I am going to put the tank back on and hang what's left of that taillight cowl on my 86 VFR and take her for a spin out on the pavement for the first ride she will have ever taken me on. Thank's for the great help I did get from the site and thanks to all the great people who helped and added their two cents besides.

JOY IS PRICELESS

And thanks to elfhunter for the best commentary of all. What the hell does anyone know?

Now, does anyone have a 2nd gen taillight cowl that is half decent?

 

As will happen on most forums, from time to time, some one will post an item(s) for sale in the Buy and Sell section. There will also be those who will post to try and convince the individual that those items should be kept. Not that they are trying to prevent others from obtaining parts, but that they find these items valuable, in some way. Especially when one is parting out a bike that another feels may be salvageable. Everyones level of mechanical/electrical/aesthetic skills are different.

It's good you were able to help another individual out, even if it started in the Buy and Sell section.

Enjoy the ride and may you always have the best of luck with any part search.

 

Not quite

I actually found Fatso1277's endeavor to get Arizona_viffer_700 to fix rather than sell off his 87 VFR appealing in its sentiment for the bike and not wanting to see it broken up. But if hes going to strip it for parts then I need to be at the front of the line because my 86 has all bad plastic.

No, my complaint is about the lay abouts who aren't selling or buying anything but complements. A bunch of old ladies gossiping across the back fence,

"Look Mable, I was out shopping ta other day and look wha I got, a nice staintune with only one stain on it, I tried to wash it out an I got it hangin' on the line right now. Look at shine will you, as long as you don't see that scrapped up part there, and that facin' the ground when I wear's it anyway. Don't it look grand tho? "

"Oh my yes, but I'll bet you had to give a pretty penny for that tho."

"Well now, I tell you Mary, and I wouldn't lie nun, but actually the milkman had it before me and he knew how I fancied it ,so he rung my doorbell and give it to me for free. Said he'd gi' me 5 bob if I was unhappy over the stain you know."

And so on and so forth, ad infinitum. The problem is getting caught up in one of these mutual admiration society social luncheons (thread) when you are trying to find a part and buy it or sell your own. The one I got caught in was named. "Did I get a good deal?" , and all the answers were supposed to be, "Oh yes, dear". I thought maybe it was a thread to "find a good deal", but I got caught up in an absurdist play instead.

What I'm asking is, can't the girls take the "over the fence talk" somewhere else during trading hours?

How do I access more smilies? Powermaster had some neat ones that don't appear on the side here. He told me to punch up "MORE" on the bottom left, but I just get sent to the teachers desk.