What happend to The Bench?

[premium1981]

Hello to any old friends that may still be here. After leaving the trading side of the hobby I pretty much stopped coming by here. I still like to bust cases and make a few pennies, but that was never really suited for this site. This was a great site for making friends in the hobby and filling the needs of fellow traders. I am in shock by what I see now. I do not mean that in a way of putting down the site, but in more sadness. Looks like a large portion of the members have moved on, and the site is really not user friendly anymore. Ads are all over and things do not display very well. What caused the change? Was it a slow progression or was there an incident that I am not aware of? Hopefully this post is not taken in the wrong way. I am one of the original members here, and it is kind of like finding out an old childhood friend that you grew up with has passed on.

 

[cmcjr99]

just one quick tip.....i also am not a fan of the default display but i asked about it upon my own return a few months ago.....if you still have the brown (wood-grain ?) background and hard-to-read text , look in the bottom left corner and select BLUE from the pull down menu...that should at least help with the display issues....

 

[just-for-cards]

Wow!
Just did that and it changed a lot. Thanks!

 

[Meliah]

Hello to any old friends that may still be here. After leaving the trading side of the hobby I pretty much stopped coming by here. I still like to bust cases and make a few pennies, but that was never really suited for this site. This was a great site for making friends in the hobby and filling the needs of fellow traders. I am in shock by what I see now. I do not mean that in a way of putting down the site, but in more sadness. Looks like a large portion of the members have moved on, and the site is really not user friendly anymore. Ads are all over and things do not display very well. What caused the change? Was it a slow progression or was there an incident that I am not aware of? Hopefully this post is not taken in the wrong way. I am one of the original members here, and it is kind of like finding out an old childhood friend that you grew up with has passed on.

Steffan, you make it sound like we are already dead!

I can understand things look much different if you have not been here of late. Last year we had to upgrade to the newest vBulletin for operating purposes and that's where most of the change came in. I know it's quite different but I got used to it quickly. In terms of members, people were always leaving the site or hobby, and then some come back down the road. Seems to be the nature of the hobby at times.

How are things with you? I see you on COMC but that's about it these days. If you're into fantasy baseball you should check out our Bench BSL league, best baseball sim ever!

 

[montserratplay]

I can't help but chime in; I drop out of trading on occasion if I'm stressed about life and/or money, but I firmly believe this is the best place to trade that I've seen on the Internet. Case busters might want to stick to eBay or elsewhere, sure, but the Trade Manager is great and this site is definitely geared toward helping collectors help each other. The only drawback to the site isn't the site's fault; I just want The Bench community to keep growing. Some of the other card forums online are great as places for discussion, but not so great for trading. Every site has its place...I just want everyone here. =)

 

[premium1981]

Steffan, you make it sound like we are already dead!

I can understand things look much different if you have not been here of late. Last year we had to upgrade to the newest vBulletin for operating purposes and that's where most of the change came in. I know it's quite different but I got used to it quickly. In terms of members, people were always leaving the site or hobby, and then some come back down the road. Seems to be the nature of the hobby at times.

How are things with you? I see you on COMC but that's about it these days. If you're into fantasy baseball you should check out our Bench BSL league, best baseball sim ever!

LOL, sorry if it came out the wrong way. It is just so much different here compared to a few years ago. I understand people come and go, but it looks like more people have left than came. There are some forums that previously had posts several times an hour that appear to be lucky to get a post or two a day.

Also, for the site, the ads are HORRIBLE! Is this new format so expensive that those ads are necessary? It might be tolerable if they were atleast hobby related. I just saw a massive ad for a Tai Dating Site.

Again, I did not want it to seem like I came back just to bash. I was just litterly blown away to see what used to be my home site do a complete 180 degree shift it appears. The style change that was mentioned helped a bit but it still isn't great. Also, new members are going to see exactly what I saw when I came back since that is the default setting.

I will try to keep you guys in mind next year when fantasy baseball kicks off. Hopefully there are still a few people around here that I remember. I'm still on COMC too, but have been liquidating my inventory after some of their fee changes. I am going with a different game plan once I get everything sold off. Always fun to start with a fresh inventory, it just sucks because I was doing so well with my previous model.

 

[Meliah]

LOL, sorry if it came out the wrong way. It is just so much different here compared to a few years ago. I understand people come and go, but it looks like more people have left than came. There are some forums that previously had posts several times an hour that appear to be lucky to get a post or two a day.

Also, for the site, the ads are HORRIBLE! Is this new format so expensive that those ads are necessary? It might be tolerable if they were atleast hobby related. I just saw a massive ad for a Tai Dating Site.

Again, I did not want it to seem like I came back just to bash. I was just litterly blown away to see what used to be my home site do a complete 180 degree shift it appears. The style change that was mentioned helped a bit but it still isn't great. Also, new members are going to see exactly what I saw when I came back since that is the default setting.

I will try to keep you guys in mind next year when fantasy baseball kicks off. Hopefully there are still a few people around here that I remember. I'm still on COMC too, but have been liquidating my inventory after some of their fee changes. I am going with a different game plan once I get everything sold off. Always fun to start with a fresh inventory, it just sucks because I was doing so well with my previous model.

From what I've read the ads are formatted for each person depending on their browsing history so I can't help you there

Our BSL fantasy league runs all year long, basically a game where you are in complete control of a team for it's history. I think we're up to 2016 now, really fun game.

 

[greatdadx2]

From what I've read the ads are formatted for each person depending on their browsing history so I can't help you there

Don't think that is the case, at least on my computer...just in the last few page views I've had these ads:

Budget rent a car...(never looked into renting a car)
Allstate insurance...( I've had the same auto insurance for years now)
Stock trading....(I'm not even smart enough to even attempt )
NHL14 game for XBOX I guess....( No time for video games, even though I would like to, but not an NHL game)

I have seen several dating sites come up also.... (Been married for 20 years...no need to get in that game)...There is one in particular that is kind of for Asian girls that is really inappropriate, even my wife asked me about it one time while I was on here at THE BENCH. A little embarrassing to say the least....

So I am confident that the banner ads that show up here on THE BENCH have nothing to do with my browsing history....

 

[Meliah]

Don't think that is the case, at least on my computer...just in the last few page views I've had these ads:

Budget rent a car...(never looked into renting a car)
Allstate insurance...( I've had the same auto insurance for years now)
Stock trading....(I'm not even smart enough to even attempt )
NHL14 game for XBOX I guess....( No time for video games, even though I would like to, but not an NHL game)

I have seen several dating sites come up also.... (Been married for 20 years...no need to get in that game)...There is one in particular that is kind of for Asian girls that is really inappropriate, even my wife asked me about it one time while I was on here at THE BENCH. A little embarrassing to say the least....

So I am confident that the banner ads that show up here on THE BENCH have nothing to do with my browsing history....

Was just having a little fun with Steffan since he mentioned a dating service

 

[Jeffo65]

The ads are based on user Internet surfing history. The ads may not be directly related but they are. The Thai dating service may be related to a search on Thailand, women's items, or anything else that the ad owner can tag it as such. It could even be related to Tonka Trucks if the ad creator deems that a search tag.

On a side note, I see very few ads. I am using Firefox. When I use IE, I see many more ads.

You can also collapse the right side that lists blogs and other items, by clicking on the multi hashed arrow at the upper right of any thread.