I used to love logging in this chat room to see the "Latest" responses to topics. Over the last month or two, most of what I see are job postings. Sometimes I like to just chat and not be bothered by job offers. This chat room is being overrun by schedulers soliciting jobs. Yes, I could narrow down the viewing by selecting, for example, "Mystery Shopping Discussion." But I do not like the screen layout as much. Now, to avoid wading through all of the job solicitations, I must toggle back and forth between "Mystery Shopping Discussion" and "Mystery Shopping Company Discussion." I wish the job offers could be kept in their own area and not be co-mingled with other topic areas.

@Dandydew wrote:

Yes, I could narrow down the viewing by selecting, for example, "Mystery Shopping Discussion."

Yes do that. Problem solved.

Dandydew, I agree. If you go to the Job Board tab and mark the forum as read, it's easier to pass them by on the Latest page.

Odd. I can't stand the "latest" function and never use it. Different strokes and all that but I can certainly understand why it would be annoying to just see a big list of job postings.

It would help if schedulers would stick to the job page. But I find it easy enough to avoid their posts in the other areas.

Recently the Mods have been quite good at moving their posts to the Job Board when they clutter the other areas of the forum.

Now if only they had a job or two in my town, never once found a job through this advertising....enough.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/08/2018 04:12PM by Irene_L.A..

I've noticed the onslaught of job postings, too..... Yes, I've found them mildly annoying - as noted above. However, I also recognize that somebody new to shopping might find them helpful as they would give him/her an idea of the breadth of shops available and, perhaps help him/her to find more companies with offerings in his/her area.

However, I wish there were a way to set my feed to only include new posts in specified sub-forums or a way to block ads from different regions of the country. As a Seattle resident I am not in any rush to snap up $15 retail shops in Boston.

I noticed this about 2 months ago or so. I think they changed whatever the algorithm is that decides which “recent” posts to show.

@KathyG

All this time and I didn't know that I could go on to that part of the forum and just mark read.
I can't thank you enough for mentioning this! I was clicking every one and then closing them so they wouldn't show up in "latest".

@spicy1 wrote:

@KathyG

All this time and I didn't know that I could go on to that part of the forum and just mark read.
I can't thank you enough for mentioning this! I was clicking every one and then closing them so they wouldn't show up in "latest".

I found a great FAQ sticky at the top of the Member Introductions area: [www.mysteryshopforum.com]

It answers a lot of questions about the forum, with marking read being the first one. There's other general info that might make it a useful read.

@Marie12 wrote:

there is a book called SHOP til you drop by Taliya Townes on amazon and I think you will find a shop in your area. My favorite company is an apartment shop company. I am not a scheduler or anything, just my favorite company is epmsonline.com.

Just asking WHY emps is your favorite?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/09/2018 12:49PM by tstewart3.

I am more tired of the ads than the job postings.

Which is why I use an adblocker. Nothing against the forum but when I used to view it with ads, sometimes the page would take longer to load and when I went to click on a thread, the page would finish loading and I was actually clicking on an ad. Despite the annoyance of then being redirected to another page, there was one that I accidentally clicked on that gave me a powelik that I had to remove.

@Msaddict wrote:

I am more tired of the ads than the job postings.

I use an adblocker as well on my laptop. My windows phone doesn't have one, so when I go on the Forum using my phone, hoo-boy, do I see a LOT of ads!! Which is why I rarely use my phone to access the Forum! Glad I have the adblocker on my laptop.

You can install the Adblocker App on your phone. Works great for me with IPhone.

@kenasch wrote:

You can install the Adblocker App on your phone. Works great for me with IPhone.

The Microsoft store on my Windows phone probably does have an adblocker app....on the other hand, this Windows phone is lacking in a number of ways, and I'm considering switching to an Android, and since I don't access the Forum very often via my Windows phone, it's not too problematic. I have to do a phone audit for MF this week, and the Client has some sort of promo going on for a free Android phone, so after the audit, I may ask about that and see what it entails. I know the Google Play Store would have anything I would need, whereas my Windows phone, which I've had for nearly 5 years now, has been rather a disappointment in regards to apps available.

I’m the one who initially started this thread. I work hard as a mystery shopper every day. Just like everyone else, I spend considerable time searching for jobs, performing jobs onsite, and writing reports at the end of the day. When my jobs are done, I just want to relax and sometimes I visit this chat room to see what others are doing.
About two-three months ago, I began noticing a very large number of job solicitations intermingled in with shopper chat. I find it extremely annoying. Every MS company has a dedicated website where jobs are posted. Shoppers’ can get solicitation emails sent to them directly. This forum even maintains a comprehensive list of companies for new and old shoppers to investigate for potential employment.

Why do mystery shopping companies, and particularly the schedulers, feel justified to invade this shoppers’ forum with advertising and job solicitations? It’s just free advertising for jobs they cannot fill otherwise. Personally, if the moderator is going to allow this, I feel he should be paid per solicitation.

I followed the advice of one contributor and clicked, “Mark Forum Read.” It definitely helped eliminate some posts, but not 100%. I never view this forum from a cell phone, so I cannot comment on the issues other people are experiencing. It’s just a shame what might have started as a good idea (allowing job postings on the forum) is ruining the forum. It's a shame people must download an adblocker app to their phones to avoid what I am talking about!

Between the ads and the trolls....kudos to us shoppers who still continue to make it better.

I see having a Job Board where schedulers can recruit shoppers as a plus. Just avoid doing the "latest" and see which forum areas have "new " posts; when done reading those, mark that aread "read" and move on. I am also busy, but have no problem doing it this way.

If a scheduler invades an area (not the Job Board) with a solicitation, just click and notify the mods. They have moved those posts to the Job board. And, it looks like they have also admonished the main problem schedulers, who have recently ceased post job to other areas.

Finally, if you want Jacob to change the algorithm so that posts to the Job Board do not show up if you select "latest" just go to the Forum Meta area and post your idea. Others will chime in, both for and against, and Jacob will get an idea of what is most wanted. Just complaining in other areas about forum content of search options is not likely to get the attention of the folks who can actually do something about it. That's why the Meta area was started.

@Dandydew wrote:

Why do mystery shopping companies, and particularly the schedulers, feel justified to invade this shoppers’ forum with advertising and job solicitations? It’s just free advertising for jobs they cannot fill otherwise. Personally, if the moderator is going to allow this, I feel he should be paid per solicitation. !

This needs to be reported to the moderators and removed or moved to the proper place. It bothers me less when schedulers put something in the wrong place than the people who join the forum just to spam us, although a scheduler who wants perfection in our performance should be able to manage to put their posts on the Job Board. And I'm not sure why it is happening so often. As for spam, I personally think all solicitations and personal promotion are spam and should be reported and removed. We had a new forum member, Marie12, who joined the forum in November and immediately started promoting her book. She ceased posting for 4 months, but she came back a couple of days ago and made 18 posts. Fifteen were spam, plugging her book. Those posts were reported and the moderator has now removed the 15 spam posts. We've had a number of others sign up to promote books. Most pretend to be someone else and say "I just read a great book."
The more honest ones say "I wrote this book" and attach their name. Spam. We've had forum members sign up to promote a brother-in-law who was a CPA and wanted forum member patronage. Anything we as forum members consider an invasion of the forum should be reported to let the moderators and forum owner know we consider it an invasion.

When did this become a chat room instead of a message board?

I have been wondering the same thing. Maybe the poster just looks at the topics in the General Chat area?

Many non-internet savvy people don't understand the difference between a chat room and a message board. I would assume the OP is someone who doesn't. Not a big deal, just yanking their chain a bit.