The quality of continental listings of UK cards

Is anyone else getting as cross as I am about this? Whatever language you speak, it really should be possible to transcribe what's in front of you! I'm ploughing through the 6575 listed as England > Unclassified. Leaving aside the question of how difficult it is to list 'London' under London, I've looked (to take just a very few examples) at a card of Windsor Road, Penarth listed as Penarth Windsor, Buxton listed as Bucton, Windor Castle, Hastin (Hastings), 'Entrance to Fowey Harbour' listed as just 'Harbour', and so many spellings of Edinburgh it's untrue.

Not only is it a pain for buyers but it's completely counterproductive for buyers to list a wrongly spelt card in a wrong category.

I've no idea what solution there is, if any, but there really needs to be a mechanism for saying "stop it". Maybe a message that sellers who consistently and repeatedly mis-describe and then dump stuff in the wrong categories are not what the website needs? Or am I just aging and getting grumpier?

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As another moderator, I used to spend ages ploughing through England and UK other & unclassified.
A few months ago, Delcampe created 2 categories - "Other" and "Unclassified".
We were told not to check unclassified anymore and just concentrate on the "proper" categories, where unclassified is for those sellers who can't be bothered to list properly and "Other" for those items that genuinely don't have a better category. However, Delcampe did not communicate this to sellers, only to the moderators.

I check "other" on a daily basis and remove anything from there that shouldn't be there - most of the time to the correct category. However, if I find a quantity of items from a single seller of places like London, Brighton, Liverpool, etc. I highlight the lot and move them in a single go into unclassified with a message to the seller not to dump their stuff in "Other".

I am not happy with the situation, but there isn't much else I can do.

I also don't agree with Delcampe's argument that items can be found using the search engine. I collect postcards of Buckingham (the town). I will only search/look for them in the category Buckinghamshire, because otherwise I'll end up with 100's of Buckingham Palace cards (due to various languages and misspelling it's impossible to search for Buckingham, but not palace, you still get all the typos and palacio, paleis, etc, depending what language the seller uses). Earlier this year, while "doing some moderating" I came across a card of Buckingham in unclassified, which I've never seen before anywhere. It had been on the site for longer than me. Had it been in the correct category it would have been bought a number of years ago.

As for misspelled titles, I agree with every one else, that it's not that hard to copy type a name and we all have to do it when listing foreign cards.

I've pondered becoming a Moderator (you all seem to have so much unpaid fun) and think I'll go for it and start shifting stuff myself. Question to Moderators: if there were more of you, could this be sorted? Or would it need so many it's not going to happen?

The fact that Delcampe are saying don't bother is NOT good. This is supposed to be a collector's site; they should be aiming at high standards of categorisation and organisation.

Some peer pressure perhaps? - "Why have you listed that there? Why have you misspelt it even though it's obvious?" More realistically - going through those 6,500+ cards, there were some serial listers responsible for a substantial percentage of them. How about a button "Report inaccurate seller"? Enough hits on that and you're out.... I don't want to flame that here but would be happy to report off-forum. They're fairly obvious though.

Now, back to Google and Genuki Gazetteer to make sure that obscure Welsh valley is in the right category....

And then of course there's prices! $26.89 for a Torquay charabanc pic? A Coronation balcony pic 17€? Claction Pier Avenue bargain box stuff 14.80€?

I am all in favour of more moderators - go for it!

But let me dissappoint you as far as clearing out Unclassified is concerned: During the time that I was actively moving stuff from England>Other & Unclassified I shifted about 12k (yes you read that correctly) and I reduced the total from 8000 to 5500.

The same few sellers you have discovered have 100's of thousands of items listed and they optimize the use of the lister - they list their items for 4 months and as soon as they end they get uploaded again and come back in the same wrong category.

Compared to moderating the postcard and stamp categories (the latter even worse than the former, if possible) King Cnut had it easy when he tried to turn back the tide!

I've sometimes reported naughty sellers who have several identical items listed, and sometimes they have been closed by Delcampe, but like marie says, the really bad sellers are the bulk-dumpers who use the lister, and how you get through to them I don't know, unless we 'name and shame' them to Delcampe?

I think it's important to Delcampe's reputation that they do care. I daresay the bulk listers bring in revenue - but they'd bring in a lot more if they made an effort to spell and to list in the right place so that collectors could actually find their offers. Maybe someone senior from Delcampe could comment?

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That is precisely how it's intended, but as I said above, it would have been nice if Delcampe had communicated this to sellers, when it was first introduced.

Equally, it would have been useful if they'd put everything in 'Other' rather than 'Unclassified' when they set the system up - it would have saved a lot of fuss and aggravation all round

Sebastien has commented about this at the time on another thread. Delcampe seemed to think that "unclassified" was the correct place for items that used to be in "other & unclassified". I suppose that is probably true for postcards when it comes to "country">o&u or even "continent">o&u, but not so where it comes to "county", "province", "state" >o&u. I wouldn't be able to give an opinion on other categories like stamps, coins, etc.