POLL-TRADING DOCK. Please read before casting your vote

[Bill Basler]

As you may be aware, we are currently working on a new online version of the Trading Dock. Our goal is to make this the most user-friendly, attractive, and thorough classic and antique boat marketplace on the internet.

The new Trading Dock will allow you manage your own ads—including placing and removing them. Most importantly, it means your ad can be put online immediately without the intervenion of Basler or other Club admin staff.

The new site will give your a count of your ad "views." You can then rework your verbiage if the ad does not seem to be pulling its weight. The new Trading Dock will also allow for very extensive descriptions and the uploading of photos.

Of course the new Trading Dock can be browsed by category (ex: Pre WW-II Runabouts, Post WW-II Runabouts) and can also be searched. using any search word or phrase.

Right now, our thinking is that the Trading Dock will continue to be free for members. In fact our thinking today is that it will also be free to non-members as well. While we continue to develop Club features that enhance the value of your membership, we think that in this particular case, free ads to non-members serves that purpose.

Let's look at the following scenarios:

• A.) You are trying to buy a specific year and model of Chris-Craft....or gasp....non-Chris-Craft. If we make non-members pay for Trading Dock ads, a reasonable assumption is that some non-members with the very rare boat that you are looking for will not opt to place the ad, due to cost, inconvenience, not having their credit card at their fingertips, or whatever. The net effect is the ad does not get placed, and you don't learn about the boat that you are trying to find.
  
  B.) You are trying to minimize some inventory in your garage. You really want to get your car in the garage before winter and that means the two boxes of engine parts need to find a new home. You place a Trading Dock ad online, knowing that it will get out to every Club member. Since the Trading Dock is free to browse, your ad actually reaches every non-member as well. And since Trading Dock ad listings are free to all, the Chris-Craft Antique Boat Club Trading Dock site is one of the most visited sites on the internet. Your ad is reaps the benefit of this traffic.

Inside information: Trading Dock ads submitted by non-members, create a very, very small amount of revenue. They are somewhat problematic from an admin standpoint, as the pricing is tied back to a word count—meaning the ad is billed in arrears, after the word count is known.

[Al Benton]

Bill,

I'm guessing you have considered some kind of limits on the size of ads that may be posted. Will commercial ads be allowed as well? I don't see a problem with it if there's size limits. They could easily include a "link" to their own "sales" site. Will there be some guidelines included to help folks post a reasonable ad and administer it? Will there be some kind of automatic "time-out" function if it's not administered regularly by the author in some fashion? Otherwise it could grow into a list that includes a lot of obsolete, misleading information.

Al

[Bill Basler]

Al, yes there will be limits...although they can be whatever we care (your opinion counts) to put in place. For example, the new ad system will allow photo uploads. We can allow for one, two ....or ten photos. One photo may be enough to show an overall view of a boat for example, but more photos would allow the seller to post detail shots of various hull features.

When a user places an ad, he/she will choose how long to post the ad for. Let's say the user posts an ad and chooses, the 30-day option. In about 25 day or so, the Trading Dock sends the advertiser an email, saying the ad expiration date is near. The email will have a link, "to renew this ad, click here."

It's just that simple. If the user renews, the ad stays online. If the user chooses not to renew, the ad becomes inactive.

[drrot]

Bill,
Sounds like a great benefit in the making.
I follow www.oldboat.com and www.marineengine.com they both get slammed with overseas postings for data entry jobs, tractor parts, ETC. They are posted untill Andrew (site owner) goes in and removes them.
Is there a way to avoid this?

[rbarton]

I agree with the new concept for the Trading Dock. More is better.

Bob Barton

[Bill Basler]

As with all web development work, there comes a time when you need to open the project up to a select few, in order to see how the site behaves, see what breaks, etc. As we continue our development of tradingdock.com, it will be helpful to us to start seeing a few real classified ads posted.

Please go to: http://www.tradingdock.org

Why tradingdock.org, and not chris-craft.org/tradingdock? Well, there's a strategy to this and we will clue you all in on that very soon.

Once this page loads you will see a "Register" link. Please click this link and fill out the brief registration form. Please note: You can use your exact same user name and password that you use for Boat Buzz, or any other Chris-Craft Antique Boat Club activity.

Once you have registered, go ahead and place your ad. Make it a real ad for a real item if you possibly can. We are at a point in the development process where we want to see real ads, real photos, real descriptions, etc. Any help you can give us would be great.

Also, please note that the tradingdock.org site says "Beta" in the masthead. This truly is a work in progress, and you will be a part of the process. As part of the beta test team, you will see changes and enhancements every time that you log in. tradingdock.org will be the home for this site forever. Go ahead and bookmark that address and come back often.

At this point in time, placing an ad is free for Chris-Craft Antique Boat Club members and non-members. We will be offering ways that you can "upgrade" your ad in the fairly near future. Since the ads are free, go ahead and post as many as you'd like. Rid your garage of your unwanted stuff.

Finally, I should tell you that no-one in the world knows that tradingdock.org exists. Please be patient as your ad will receive a very limited number of views initially. This will change quickly in the upcoming months. As we promote the site, and start to build steady organic growth, we will closely monitor visits and we will report on the traffic of the site.

We will also be developing advertising programs for brokers and parts businesses.

Go to it. Post your Trading Dock ads today!

[Al Benton]

Bill,

I tried to register on the new "Trading Dock" site and can't seem to get through. At least not using my present user name and password. The user name doesn't accept spaces and the password requires 6-12 characters. At first it was asking for a registration code as well.

[Bill Basler]

Al, you are right. I thought we had removed some of the restrictions on user name and password. I will check with Matt on thisin the morning. The registration code is another thing that we will be disabling.

For now, you can log on as user name albenton...or something similar. As for the password you will temporarily have to use one that is mre than six characters. You will be able to change this after the fact as well.

This is a Beta version. A work in progress.

[Bill Basler]

Al and others, the www.tradingdock.org site has been tweaked. The character limitations have been removed on the User Name and Password fields. You can now also use a space in your user name. Al, you can now sign up under user name Al Benton.

Jim Staib has posted a few ads with success. I have talked with him briefly about a few more tweaks. Please go at it, and let me know what your thoughts are.