Are you guilty of Dreaded Symbol Overload?

Elmer,

This subject was broached a few month's back, and at the time I would have voted (if this were a democracy) for the symbols to stay. Recently I have had a change of heart.

It makes the WSO section look cheap - MAYBE there IS a correlation between the complaints of cheap WSOs and the plethora of symbols. Not that they are directly related, but it sets up a certain set of expectations, and frankly, the symbols look cheap.

If I may be so bold, in relation to symbols that part of the board should be renamed the Warrior Vomitorium and WSO could stand for We've Spewed Out.

This isn't my choice to make, just sharing my opinion on the matter.

All the best,
Michael

Looking over the listings in the WSO, I have to first take medication to avoid seasickness from all the swirling of symbols. However, all this regurgitated canine breakfast does do one thing: It makes good headlines stand out even more.

Here's one that grabbed my eye right away by Keith Purkiss:

"You Can Practically Steal All My eBay Secrets For Only $1 (VERY LIMITED OFFER)"

That's a headline. It needs no dancing babies. It grabs your attention and spells out the benefits.

Something like "$$$$$$$---> MAKE MONEY <----$$$$$$$" doesn't. It's elicits the response, "Yeah! Isn't that what all WSOs are about? WHERE'S THE BEEF?"

It would be much better if the symbols were gone.

Okay, guilty as charged i.e. for the dog's breakfast comment (not for the symbols!).

Honestly, all those symbols look just awful. And now that so many people are using them, I doubt they are really helping people to stand out. I suspect, however, that others are feeling obliged to also use them for fear of their WSO getting lost, which has just created a vicious cycle where the end result is... a forum that looks like a dog's breakfast and posts using symbols looking tacky, tacky, tacky.

Maybe I'm not representative - and I suspect I'm not - but the more someone uses symbols the more I'm inclined NOT to buy from them. I guess at a subconscious level my thinking is: if you're so good, why are you putting all that stuff in your subject line?

Maybe Kevin is right and now the offers with text only and a strong subject line are now standing out... or maybe I am dead wrong and marketers using symbols have found that they do pull in more sales by using them... but I would personally like to see a return to the days when symbols were not allowed in the WSO forum.

It seems to work for the main forum, why not the WSO forum?

Yeah...this subject has been brought up a lot about how some will not buy from a WSO with symbols in the title...actually...They work...But like jeremy said we rarely use em anymore...maybe a few $$$ signs.

Frankly to be honest...If the symbols stop them from buying...SWEET!...That means I have one less person that is so anal about everything, and probably won't learn anything from us because of complete analysis paralysis and stubborness that it saves us from wasting our valuable time trying to teach them.

But lets face it even if the person doesn't buy at first...if your not selling trash...and the word gets around that you don't sell trash. They are coming back to buy no matter if you have 4 pages of symbols.

I said this the last time this discussion was brought up...

At this point, since most everyone is using symbols in their WSO titles, doesn't it make sense if you want to stand out in the WSO forum, you should NOT use symbols?

Just a thought, haven't tested or anything, but it just makes sense to me.

.jrd

Hey Elmer, been a while since we talked.

Maybe there should be a new WSO rule for this matter. Sometimes restrictions invoke creativity. Like creative ad writing on for Google Adwords. You can not use the exclamation sign like twice I believe. Imagine an ad looking like !!!!!BUY THIS!!!!!! LOL

haha