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A special kind of Stoopid...

  1. Tony C. Ωf Jury member Aug 23, 2015

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    I find that there is a relatively simple way to identify truly special examples of stupidity, which is to find those in which the precise opposite of the intended result is achieved.

    Is anyone surprised that ebay has earned such a dubious distinction?

    As anyone reading this post almost certainly knows, for many years ebay allowed users to refine searches for watches by date of manufacture, and wisely used a few, broad categories (e.g 1940-70). This was a simple and effective way to narrow searches, and it's hard to imagine that any but a tiny percentage of regular users of the system felt that it was inadequate.

    As some of you have likely noticed, this system has recently changed. Why? Well, presumably some bid'ness skool graduate who works for ebay had an epiphany, and decided that users would obviously benefit from much more detailed refinement. So now, rather than broad categories, single decades of manufacture must be chosen.

    The result – a wholly flippin' predictable result – is that the vast majority of listings have now been shifted into the "Not Specified" category, as only a small percentage of sellers are sophisticated enough to discern the exact decade from which their watches emanate.

    It's irritating enough to have to take the time to redefine many saved searches, but to end up with far less useful ones adds tremendous insult to injury.

    The change is, in my view, an example of breathtaking stupidity.
     
    Edited Aug 23, 2015
    tmw57, Giff2577 and noelekal like this.
  2. Pvt-Public Aug 23, 2015

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    All you have to do is select "see all" and check off as many decades as you want. Yes it is extra steps but it isn't so bad.
     
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  3. Tony C. Ωf Jury member Aug 23, 2015

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    No, you have missed the point, or did not read my post carefully. Because they now force a much more specific parsing, many, many sellers who previously could easily judge that their watches were, for example, either pre or post 1970, now are unable to make the more specific judgments required, and therefore take the easy way out (i.e. "Not Specified"). If you actually attempt to do searches, you will quickly understand the problem.
     
    Edited Aug 23, 2015
  4. Pvt-Public Aug 23, 2015

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    I was looking at it from the buyers side. I see your point, the sellers mostly likely don't know the vintage. Oooops, I'm going to blame low caffeine levels.
     
  5. Darlinboy Pratts! Will I B******S!!! Aug 23, 2015

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    This change doesn't matter. Sellers have it wrong so often that a search using the date of manufacture is LESS effective than one without.

    Do you really want to miss that $2000 "buy it now" 2998 because the seller thought it was made in the '80's?

    ::facepalm1::
     
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  6. DirtyDozen12 Thanks, mystery donor! Aug 23, 2015

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    I completely agree. This "improvement" has made eBay browsing significantly more tedious.
     
    Edited Aug 23, 2015
  7. bristnj Aug 24, 2015

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    Because everything was categorized into the old parameters (i.e. 1920 - 1970, etc), when they made the change almost 100% of the existing listings went into an unspecified date range. There was no notification to the seller to update. A new listing can be dated accordingly, but the 99% of existing listings (several hundred thousand) now sit in a accumulated unspecified bucket. I agree, the change was implemented hastily, and without much thought to the existing foundation of listings.
     
  8. Tony C. Ωf Jury member Aug 24, 2015

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    You, sir, are an optimist. I do take your basic point, but maintain that many sellers will not know how to narrow down the age of their watches to a decade, and will instead simply opt to skip that part, i.e. "Not Specified". Which in turn will leave buyers with two basic options: parse searches by decade(s), and miss out on many watches of possible interest, or spend time and energy sifting through a category that features many, many watches that won't be of any interest.
     
  9. bristnj Aug 24, 2015

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    Don't get me wrong, I completely agree with you and your points. This change is ridiculous. It will make searching much more tedious and lend to non-categorized/selected date ranges or miss categorized dates. Perhaps my message was a bit too neutral.
     
  10. adi4 Aug 24, 2015

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    I'm no fan of ebay by far, but just throwing some optimism in here (for what is definitely a stupid act on their part), should make it possible to find a few more unknown gems if you have the patience for the tedious search now. :)
     
  11. Tony C. Ωf Jury member Aug 24, 2015

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    That's a fair point, and I agree. But there will also be plenty of nice opportunities missed, unless you have lots of time and patience!
     
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  12. noelekal Home For Wayward Watches Aug 24, 2015

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    I fussed at Ebay twice about this since the change. As may be seen, they don't really care what I may say.

    I scarcely had time to search all auctions of my favorites, Omega and Longines, but noticed on the few times that I did that I was missing out on only a very few of the watches in which I was most interested when looking at categories other than 1920-1970.

    Imperfect as the previous divisions of years search "helps" were, they were worlds better than this current waste of time. The classic best of both Omega and Longines watches, as well as some other personal favorites, are fun to browse. The outlandish, or in some instances insipid styling of some models and some eras, as well as anything quartz, is a particular flavor of "yuck" to me and I don't wish to dig through all those just to find the nuggets. I'll miss out on more opportunities now as I'm not going to expend the time it takes to peruse everything within a brand category.

    Another category I never understood was sorting by "band material." I could understand "case material," a category that would be welcome, but "band material" is unhelpful.
     
  13. adi4 Aug 24, 2015

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    That's true, especially for Longines since I'm only interested in pre-1970 models now that I've seen some of the phenomenal vintages here. They might as well have a google-like "I'm feeling lucky" search now...
     
  14. happytapy Aug 24, 2015

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    I complained about the removal of the print function and replacement with a report function. Never got a reply. Not interested in participating in there surveys anymore as a result.
     
  15. citizenrich Metal Mixer! Aug 25, 2015

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    I understood what you meant and I'm really dumb.

    You OK, Bro-ham? You kinda ripped poor pvt-public's (or, is the other way?) head off there.

    I know you've generally no patience for buffoonery but you seem a bit on edge. Hope all is well!

    -Rich
     
  16. Tony C. Ωf Jury member Aug 25, 2015

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    Thanks Rich. The problem is twofold: I don't, as you suggest, suffer gools fladly, and there is mounting evidence that I may be dyslexic. :rolleyes:
     
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